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Introduction
This paper is concerned with a labour market feature of contemporary hospitality in the
UK that is both newly emergent and rapidly increasing in significance. This is the
growing dependence of hospitality businesses in remoter parts of the country upon
migrant, predominantly international, workers to meet both numerical and skills gaps
within local labour markets. Migrant labour is not a new phenomenon in the hospitality
industry but its use, particularly in Europe, has been historically concentrated in major
urban centres. Hospitality businesses in more peripheral locations, by contrast, have
generally recruited homogenously from within local communities. Hospitality businesses
in peripheral locations face particular challenges, none so more than in terms of their
access to quality human resources. This paper will address the nature of migrant labour
in hospitality in Northern Ireland, the Lake District and Scotland and, based on the Cross Cultural Management: An
outcomes of three parallel surveys, will consider and contrast the experiences of these International Journal
Vol. 14 No. 3, 2007
workers in these peripheral regions of the UK. pp. 229-239
Governments in the contemporary world are increasingly recognising the benefits # Emerald Group Publishing Limited
1352-7606
of labour migration to a country’s economy. Migrant workers can be beneficial to the DOI 10.1108/13527600710775775
CCM economy in a multitude of ways: in particular, they are able to fill gaps in the domestic
14,3 labour market and alleviate skills shortages (Schneider and Holman, 2005;
Sriskandarajah et al., 2004) as well as increasing the levels of employment which, in
turn, helps to raise gross domestic product. Their age profile is such that they use less
in the way of services but contribute to tax and national insurance payments which, in
turn, help to finance future pensions.
230 Estimating the total number of migrants who are working in the UK is difficult and,
indeed, politically controversial because of the varying definitions attached to
migrants in the labour market and the different systems of recording the inflow and
outflow of people. According to data collected through the Labour Force Survey, the
numbers of migrants working in the UK rose strongly in the late 1990s. Recorded
figures in 2005 were 1.504 million, a 4.1 per cent increase from 2004. The largest group
of migrants in the UK are Europeans (45 per cent) and the numbers of Central and
Eastern Europeans over the past couple of years has increased to 306,000, 10.1 per cent
of all foreign workers in 2005, almost double that of 2004 when the figure was 184,000
(6.4 per cent). The largest single national group is from Poland (Salt, 2005) and, in
addition, significant numbers of Slovakians and Lithuanians have also found work in
the UK.
Methodology
The purpose of this research study was to address a range of questions about migrant
workers in the hospitality sector of peripheral locations. Specifically, this study seeks
to seek information on:
(1) The profile of migrant workers in the Northern Ireland, Lake District and
Scottish hospitality.
(2) The nature of work undertaken by migrant workers in the hospitality sector.
(3) Perceptions of work in hospitality held by migrant workers in hospitality.
(4) Working conditions of migrant workers – pay, accommodation, training.
(5) The extent and nature of integration by migrant workers in their workplace
and in the wider community.
(6) Aspirations for the future – within their current work locations and elsewhere.
This research focuses on the experiences of international employees working in a
variety of hotels in the three research locations. The research was carried out during
the summers of 2005 and 2006. In the main, participating hotels were small to medium
in size and primarily independently/family owned although a small number were chain
operated. In Northern Ireland, nine hotels participated in the study; in Scotland the
CCM total was eight establishments; while, in the Lake District, the research was conducted
14,3 in five hotels, all part of the same group and under common ownership.
In Northern Ireland, the study included 82 employees from 17 countries, using focus
groups in each establishment. Participation by international employees in Northern
Ireland ranged from 15 to 100 per cent of the total international workforce in each
establishment. Each respondent was first asked to respond to a self-completion
232 questionnaire, which addressed questions relating to who international workers are –
their backgrounds, training profiles and working experiences. This questionnaire was
also used in Scotland but on a self-completion basis and 38 usable returns were
received (a 21 per cent response rate of those distributed). In the Lake District, both self-
completion questionnaires and focus groups were utilised. The five hotels employ
approximately 236 workers of whom, 50.42 per cent are international workers. Of 120
questionnaires distributed as part of the Lake District survey, a total of 64 were
returned (a 53 per cent response rate). In addition, six focus group sessions, with
between six and eight participants each, were conducted within four hotels.
All three studies addressed the perspectives of hotel managers in parallel to that of
migrant workers. Data from the management surveys are not reported here.
Education/training
Table IV points to a high level of educational attainment among respondents relative to
the perceived demands of the job and this is consistent with wider experiences of
hospitality employment in transition economies within which front line work,
Educational level Northern Ireland The Lake District Scotland Combined samples
References
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Further reading
Baum, T. and Devine, F. (2005), ‘‘Skills and the service sector: the case of hotel front office
employment in Northern Ireland’’, paper presented at the Tourism and Hospitality
Research in Ireland: Exploring the Issues Conference, 14 and 15 June 2005, Portrush.
Kyambi, S. (2005), Beyond Black and White. Mapping New Immigrant Communities, Institute for Cultural
Public Policy Research, London.
Northern Ireland New Earnings Survey (2003), in Employment – NI Labour Force Survey 2004.
diversity in
Northern Ireland Skills Monitoring Survey (2002), Department of Higher and Further Education,
hospitality work
Training and Employment, DHFETE.
Odgers, P. and Baum, T. (2001), Bechmarking of Best Practice in Hotel Front Office, CERT,
Dublin. 239
Segal-Horn, S. (2000), ‘‘The search for core competencies in a service multinational. A case study
of the French hotel Novotel’’, in Aharoni, Y. and Nachum, L. (Ed.), Globalisation of Services,
Routledge, New York, NY, pp. 320-333.
Sriskandarajah, D., Crawley, H., Dhudwar, A., Gill, M., Grell, M., Hopwood, F. and Robinson, E.
(2004), Labour Migration to the UK. An Ippr FactFile, Institute for Public Policy Research,
London.
Corresponding author
Tom Baum can be contacted at: t.g.baum@strath.ac.uk