Hospitality sector still stuck in staff crisis

Special visas to attract international workers to Galway may be required to address staff shortages in the hospitality industry.

That’s according to Galway City Vintners Chief Johnny Duggan who said recruitment issues were persisting, with a number of pubs and restaurants still unable to return to pre-Covid opening times.

This comes as the President of NUI Galway Students’ Union warned that many students who normally work in the industry for the summer may up sticks – faced with eyewatering rents that low-paid work will not cover.

Mr Duggan told the Connacht Tribune that getting staff for kitchen work and security roles continued to have an impact and while the focus had been on entry-level staff – often on the minimum wage – there were also high-skilled and well-paid positions going unfilled.

“There is a restaurant in the city that’s been closed for a number of weeks because it can’t get a chef.

“There were senior people in well-paid positions who couldn’t survive on the pandemic payment – they had mortgages, car loans and families. There seems to be a perception that it’s all minimum wage or just above it but there are vacancies for senior staff and middle management-level salaries,” said Mr Duggan.

Given the volume of people who moved out of the industry during the pandemic for reasons varying from pay to better hours, it wasn’t a case of ‘just turning a tap on’ and replenishing staff levels when society reopened, he says.

Read the full story in this week’s Connacht Tribune, on sale in shops now – or you can download the digital edition from www.connachttribune.ie