At the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, we surveyed our audience to get their feelings towards how the hospitality industry was going to make it through and whether workers wanted to stay in the industry and continue seeking opportunities if they were furloughed or laid off. 

Months later, we decided to survey our audience again to see if their thoughts have changed. Thank you to everyone who contributed to our survey, below is a breakdown of the results. 

Hospitality employment in numbers 

As we know, the hospitality industry has faced a lot of obstacles and challenges during the pandemic including keeping their staff due to low reservations. Many properties have had to furlough or lay off their staff, and because of that, 70% of our respondents said their employment status had changed during COVID-19. 

48% said the specific change was getting laid off, 21% were furloughed and 23% have experienced no change in their employment status. Others also experienced having their hours changed, switching jobs or employers, or being moved to a part-time employee. 

Back in June, we asked our audience for those who were looking for new opportunities, whether or not they planned on continuing to work in the hospitality industry. 86.2% answered that they were, and now, five months later when asking the same question, 87% of our audience are still planning on staying in the hospitality industry. 

Job seeking 

With many finding themselves back on the job market, we were curious as to what their experience has been in finding new opportunities. 

Many current job seekers mentioned that they have been applying to multiple opportunities, but are not receiving any communication back, not even an email saying they’re not moving forward. Seasoned hospitality professionals are finding there is a lack of opportunity for management positions and are having to consider taking pay cuts and applying to jobs that they are overqualified for. 

69% of our respondents still answered that they applied to a job and are expecting to get the offer, despite the hardships mentioned above. 

For those who are seeking opportunities outside of the hospitality industry, 39% are very confident that their skills will be transferrable to other industries, while only 4% are not confident at all. 

As far as hospitality companies returning to their pre-COVID staffing levels, most are expecting it to happen in May or later of 2021 (60%) and only 8% are expecting it to happen before the end of 2020. 

The future looks bright

Generally, everyone is feeling optimistic about the future of the industry. 30% of our respondents said they’re feeling very optimistic. Many of our respondents believe that the industry will be able to evolve to make it through this pandemic and recession and that there will be opportunities for workers to evolve their skills as well. 

Although this has disrupted the hospitality industry greatly, the industry and its workers are no strangers to adversity, and will come back stronger and ready to work!