Why are most hotel workers not Irish ?

Bullseye1 wrote: »

I know of one Hotel group who during the Celtic Tiger could not get Irish people to work the positions available and went to Eastern European countries outside the EU and paid for their visas. These people are tied to that hotel and cannot move onto another job until they have worked their five years and apply for Irish residency.

so this hotel think they own these people, there is alot of things to be looked into, wonder what the authorities are doing, with people handing over their first weeks hard earned money, and then these who think they own them, i thought slavery was gone

woodoo wrote: »

Do we not have laws stating thew max hours someone has to work in a week? And a min wage?

These things just really don't apply in a hotel environment. I know because I worked in one for a couple of years as a teenager and now my brother does the same job, things are even worse for him because of the economic change obviously. Yes you have these rights and entitlements but the reality of it is this: young person on minimum wage, at school or college so working as many hours as you can get to try and come out with a decent weekly wage (maybe 30 hours in a weekend). Now where you end up getting screwed is working a wedding or niteclub behind the bar on a Friday, finishing at 4am and rostered for a split shift in the morning (1100-1500, 2 hrs off, 1700-0400 again). A lot of hours, but at <€9 p/h a lot of hardship. Ask the manager not to put you on the Saturday morning after a Friday night and all of a sudden you get NO hours on Saturday. No hours=no money. This is why people put up with this sh*te. I don't know of another business in Ireland that can abuse people like this, it's the nature of the work

Its quite simple really,

Lets go back to the boom times, no one in the right frame of mind was going to work in the Hotel/Catering Sector, why would they? I recall a time when some one could earn as much as 15 euro & more per hour packing boxes at dell or IBM and have a reasonable social life. Along came the developers building hotels in ridiculous locations throughout the country with little clue on how to run or manage them. At the same time there was an enormous decrease in the numbers of Irish people training in or expressing any interest in the hospitality sector.

In an attempt to fill the short fall, the working visa program became very liberal (I know because i personally had to employ up to six people through the program), we encouraged enormous numbers of foreign nationals into the work force, especially Sri Lankans. Brilliant people by the way with fantastic work ethic. Then our wonderful EU brought in rules allowing most EU citizens legally work in all EU countries and the country was inundated with eastern Europeans who gladly filled the void, up to 150k at one stage I believe.

Then everything collapsed, toxic hotels spread far and wide, 90% of hotels reduced either rosters or pay, currently there are approx 200 hotels in administration and essentially run by banks who care less about hospitality and their management companies focus is entirely on revenues to reduced bank debt. Combined with dreadful standards, zero hospitality and crap service we now have a hospitality sector in the Toilet. Those none Irish staff remain to keep these toxic hotels trading but on a shoe string, there is zero employment opportunities either for none Irish staff and especially Irish staff and its a wonder these toxic hotels remain open because all they do is destroy those rare quality hotels that have traded successfully for decades.

So its simply really, there was a time few Irish people wanted to work in the Hotel industry, foreign nationals filled the void, too many hotels were built, most now essentially bankrupt, most of the foreign nationals once employed to run new and existing hotels have long since departed, those who have remained are on vastly reduced pay and hours, we blame the economy for the reduction in visitor numbers and this is partly true but I suspect it is also because the hospitality sector is in the toilet, no one in their right mind would currently invest in the sector and little if any new employment is envisaged and certainly there are less and less Irish people training in the sector.

A final observation of the absurdity of the situation, I live near a large provincial town in the midlands, it has three Hotels, for the past year these three Hotels, once independently owned are all currently managed and operated by one management company on behalf or at the behest of Banks, quite a turn for the books me thinks!

My friend manages her family's hotel and just recently advertised for a receptionists position.

She told me of all the applicants, not one was Irish.

She would love to hire Irish, but finds that very few ever show any interest in the jobs advertised and those that she does take on, even fewer actually last any length of time at all, whereas the foreign workers are always hard working and reliable.

It's a shame, because she says visitors often comment on the lack of Irish staff.