North Yorkshire hospitality businesses 'struggling' to recruit
It's ahead of the summer season
Hospitality businesses in North Yorkshire are still struggling to recruit staff with the summer season around the corner.
Figures from the ONS earlier this year suggest vacancies in the sector are 72 percent higher than pre-pandemic.
Carolyn Frank, from the North Yorkshire Federation of Small Businesses. said: "Particularly in hospitality, businesses tell us just generally there's a lack of applicants for those vacancies so it's really difficult, particularly with seasonal businesses so like on the coast and in rural areas where tourists come more in summer. It's difficult for businesses to adjust their staffing accordingly.
"Hospitality needs to make itself more attractive to job applicants but in the coastal areas and in the tourist hotspots of North Yorkshire, it's very difficult when there's that seasonable variation. It's difficult to fund employees year-round when you've got boom and quieter times.
"All these extra bank holidays is a two-sided coin as always for small businesses. It's great that they're going to really busy and we hope that they're absolutely flat out busy. They definitely need that additional income but it's a headache for them to be able to staff up for these really, really busy times if they don't have people applying for these vacancies.
"They're wanting to help staff through the cost of living crisis but it's not possible for them to pass those costs on. They're having to absorb all these cost increases of other things with energy being number one. People have less money to spend, staff require higher wages and the costs are rising. It's not a good position to be in."