An analysis of the UK’s response to post-Brexit hospitality workforce shortages: revisiting the BHA-KPMG 2017 report

In 2016, the UK made a shocking decision to withdraw from the EU (i.e. Brexit), including the Single Market and the Freedom of Movement. As an industry with high reliance on EU workers, hospitality was significantly affected by the sudden drop in their main foreign labour supply. This thesis reviews the KPMG 2017 report for the British Hospitality Association (BHA) and aims to evaluate the capability of the Youth Mobility Scheme and wage increase strategies in solving the sector’s recruitment issues, as well as providing an update on the workforce trends and patterns four years after the Brexit transition completed. Since the timeline coincides with the coronavirus pandemic, it is also mentioned to account for any potential overlapping effects. A quantitative design is applied on secondary data collected from official agencies. With the use of various analytical software, the data was processed and examined. The findings indicates that despite the sharp decline in EU migrants, the industry has, at least temporarily, recovered to its pre-Brexit (i.e. pre-2020) operational levels. The Youth Mobility Scheme appears to have effectively expanded the foreign labour replacements, which has been crucial in easing the hospitality workforce requirements. Although both wage and the number of British employees has experienced a small increase, the industry’s real median wage is still considerably below the UK average, thus they couldn’t be responsible for these new hires. Moreover, in line with the 2017 report’s projections, the sector’s growth rate has dropped resulting from the UK’s separation from the EU. Due to the data limitations and the fact that the impacts of Brexit are still unfolding, the study suggests a need for future updates and explorations into other potential measures.