A lack of skills and experience contributing to candidates in Australia not being job ready is proving to be more of a challenge for employers in the accommodation industry than ever before.
This was the view of more than 70 per cent of respondents in a survey of over 1800 respondent businesses which is among the findings in a new report by Deloitte on tourism labour.
“The 70 per cent of tourism employers surveyed who indicated that the skills and experience of candidates is a problem is higher than the previous report in 2011,” said the Chief Executive Officer of the Accommodation Association of Australia, Richard Munro.
“Given some 125,000 new workers will be required in the industry in the next 10 years, not having job-ready people is a significant hurdle.
“It’s especially difficult to overcome given the tourism and accommodation industries are competing for labour with other growing sectors, such as aged care.
“Recruiting staff with the right skills sets and level of experience and then retaining these staff – through career development and other methods – will be vital for our industry going forward.
“Labour is important to tourism and tourism is very important to Australia.”
The Accommodation Association is continuing to invest in resources to assist accommodation businesses to overcome these challenges through the Accommodation Association Academy.
“The Accommodation Association Academy has had hundreds of graduates progress to employment in the industry in the last 12 months, which is an outstanding result,” Mr Munro said.
“The Academy’s pre-employment program has an outstanding success rate of graduates finding employment after a two-week government-assisted pre-employment program which utilises actual accommodation rooms and real-life food-and-beverage scenarios.
“The Academy is strongly focused on delivering tangible employment outcomes for accommodation businesses across Australia.”
