Popular seaside resorts in staffing shortage crisis: ‘People are in search of the good life’ instead

"It is a life sentence," joked a Scarborough Fish and Chip shop owner who has been struggling to recruit staff “like everyone else.”

Sheena Medd has worked at Winking Willy’s for 25 years alongside her Dad who came up with the name.

While her family-run business needed the huge surge of customers during the summer months as it is what so many seasonal businesses rely on, Sheena couldn’t capitalise on it.

“We’ve been shutting earlier. Me and core staff have been doing 11-12 hour shifts.”

Before the popular chippy opened until 10.30pm but even on busy days they had to close shop by 8pm.

“People don’t want to go into hospitality, they want to live their best life,” said Sheena who has struggled to recruit and retain talented staff following Covid.

She said that she noticed many young people are now in search of the so-called ‘good life,’ after finding themselves during covid.

“Some are too anxious or too nervous - I think it’s both mental health and generational reasons,” said Sheena.

“The good ones tend to leave and move on, it’s the same with chefs and waiting on staff.”

Many other business owners across the seaside resort alluded to Brexit and also Covid hitting the industry hard and the fact that so many of their hospitality staff ended up becoming carers during the Pandemic.

Official figures in June 2022 showed that vacancies in the hospitality sector jumped to a record high of 174,000 in May of this year before the key summer season.

The Office for National Statistics’ figures revealed that overall job vacancies rose to a new record of 1.3 million – and more than a tenth of these were in the hospitality sector.

UK hospitality businesses recorded 83 per more vacancies over the three months to May than over the same period in 2019, before the pandemic struck.

UK hospitality businesses recorded 83 per more vacancies over the three months to May than over the same period in 2019, before the pandemic struck.