Foreign migrants flock to join catering sector

18 November 2004
Foreign migrants flock to join catering sector

Nearly one-third of the 80,730 Eastern European workers who entered Britain between May and September this year took jobs in hospitality and catering.

According to the British Hospitality Association (BHA), 76% of the 24,170 new workers who joined the trade under the Government's Worker Registration Scheme took up permanent roles.

The majority of immigrants came from Poland (56%), followed by Lithuania (17%) and Slovakia (10%). Others came from the Czech Republic, Latvia, Hungary, Estonia and Slovenia.

London was their principal destination, attracting 40% (or 9,590) of all newcomers to the hospitality trade and half of all Eastern Europeans who travelled to the UK.

Other popular destinations for catering and hospitality staff were southern and central England, which attracted 2,840 of newcomers, the South-east (2,490) and the South-west (1,705).

More than one-third of the Eastern Europeans who headed for Scotland chose jobs in hospitality and catering, filling 1,745 vacancies.

Overall, the majority of immigrants took low-skilled jobs, with just 265 filling roles as managers and as head or second chefs.

Most came over as kitchen and catering assistants (3,035), as waiters or waitresses (2,745), or as maids or room attendants (1,745). Bar staff accounted for 3% of all job placements between July and September.

Martin Couchman, deputy chief executive of the BHA, said that the new immigrants were helping to fill some jobs. "But the numbers are not that great and are not filling the 100,000 vacancies," he said. "We need the other schemes to continue."

Source: Caterer & Hotelkeeper magazine, 18 November 2004

The Caterer Breakfast Briefing Email

Start the working day with The Caterer’s free breakfast briefing email

Sign Up and manage your preferences below

Check mark icon
Thank you

You have successfully signed up for the Caterer Breakfast Briefing Email and will hear from us soon!

Jacobs Media is honoured to be the recipient of the 2020 Queen's Award for Enterprise.

The highest official awards for UK businesses since being established by royal warrant in 1965. Read more.

close

Ad Blocker detected

We have noticed you are using an adblocker and – although we support freedom of choice – we would like to ask you to enable ads on our site. They are an important revenue source which supports free access of our website's content, especially during the COVID-19 crisis.

trade tracker pixel tracking