More than one-third of former hospitality workers won’t return: survey

About 38 percent of former hospitality workers are not considering returning to the industry, according to a new survey published Thursday.

The survey, which was conducted by job search engine Joblist, polled nearly 13,000 job seekers regarding whether they would be interested in a hospitality job, including those who formerly worked in the industry.

The survey noted that while “workers with previous hospitality experience are significantly more interested in hospitality jobs than the overall average,” close to 40 percent would not consider returning to the industry.

The survey also noted that some incentives might motivate these former employees to return, with 39 percent of former employees saying that better pay would persuade them to change their minds, 23 percent saying they could be persuaded by more benefits and 20 percent saying a bonus could change their minds.

However, the survey noted that a majority of former employees leaving hospitality could not be incentivized at all to return to the hospitality industry.

“Over 50% of former hospitality workers who are moving on report that no pay increases or incentives would make them return to their old restaurant, bar, or hotel job,” the survey said.

In general, the survey found that 60 percent of job seekers would not consider a hospitality job as their next job. The majority of those polled — 58 percent — said they would prefer working in a different setting. Others pointed to the pay being too low (37 percent), lack of benefits (20 percent) and not enough scheduling flexibility (16 percent), among other concerns.

Those already in the hospitality business who are looking to make a change cited different work settings (52 percent), higher pay (45 percent), better benefits (29 percent), more flexibility in scheduling (19 percent) and additional opportunities to work remotely (16 percent.)

The survey comes as the U.S. added 850,000 jobs in June, exceeding the expectations of economists. At the same time, the unemployment rate increased slightly at 5.9 percent and 6.4 million Americans did not seek a job in the month, which is not factored into the unemployment rate.

As some individuals have used the pandemic to reevaluate career choices, the onus appears to be on businesses to lure workers back.

Joblist conducted the survey with 12,909 job seekers, all of whom are Joblist users in the U.S. The surveys were done between April and June, and the data was not weighted.