How can hospitality recover from the labour shortage?

With the double whammy of Brexit and the pandemic, British pubs and restaurants are suffering acute labour shortages. James Moore explores how they can recover in the new year

Central London’s pubs have seen a dearth of punters in the run-up to Christmas (PA)

Hospitality, which represents around 10 per cent of UK employment, is haemorrhaging its lifeblood right now – its people,” says Kate Nicholls, who ought to know. She is the boss of UK Hospitality, the industry’s vocal trade body.

Her organisation’s 740 corporate members operate 90,000 venues around the UK. Its statistics say that they generated £130bn of economic activity pre-Covid and employed 3.2 million people.

Trouble is, they’re finding it desperately hard to find new ones to add to that number.