Immigration eased but staff shortages persist

The number of work permits granted to non-EU chefs has nearly quadrupled in the past year, reflecting both British consumers' demand for varied ethnic cooking and the Government's new attention to addressing recruitment problems in the industry.

Kuldeep Singh, owner and executive chef of Mela in London, is set to open his second restaurant, Chowki, in the capital on 10 June. Each month three different culinary regions of India will be represented on the menu. To make this possible, Singh has recruited eight chefs from various parts of India.

He said: "The Home Office was very good. It took just two weeks to get the work permits and they approved all eight applications." Each chef cost £1,500 in legal fees on top of relocation costs. "We can't find these chefs here, and they'll be able to train our second chefs, who will benefit," he added.

Vineet Bhatia, chef-patron of the one-Michelin-starred Zaika, and Zaika Bazaar, in London, brought four chefs from India two years ago. He said it was expensive but straightforward. He said that virtually no staff now leave the restaurants, but that job applications continue to pour in, some of which he passes on to other restaurateurs.

At Fernandez Vaz Solicitors, Maria Fernandez helps Indian, Nepalese, Thai and Chinese restaurateurs in making applications. She said that a year ago it was only the large, well-established restaurants that were paying legal fees of between £500 and £2,500 plus relocation costs to bring in new talent. But now the smaller, neighbourhood businesses are following suit, driven by the demand for authenticity and quality.

Fernandez has seen a general trend of restaurants increasing their size and banqueting and private catering operations to bump up profitability. Although the initial outlay for a small restaurant may be high, the increase in sales created by new talent was substantial, she said.

A vacancy must have been advertised in two national publications for four weeks without being filled before a work permit application can be made. The permit application then takes between four and seven weeks to process. Fernandez said that applications from Bangladesh, however, were taking about three months, because of allegations of forged documents causing delays at the country's British High Commission.

Shawkat Ahmed, secretary general of the Bangladesh Caterers Association, said: "I welcome the Government's decision to focus on catering and relax the work-permit criteria, but the system is still a bit expensive for small businesses who need to bring in chefs for their survival. They are losing custom, not because they don't want to change the menu, but because they don't have the chefs with the expertise to do it."

Although the rise in work permits may have solved skills shortages for some, the number of general unfilled hospitality jobs continues to rise. According to official statistics, non-EU staff are filling just a tiny fraction of hospitality vacancies.

In the three months to April 2001, out of 93,360 JobCentre advertisements, 56% remained unfilled, according to the Hospitality Training Foundation's labour market review. In the same period in 1998, 46% of vacancies remained unfilled.

The review, published this month, found that southern England, with its high density of hotels, pubs and restaurants, has the most positions both filled and unfilled. Chef and waiting vacancies are the biggest problem.

While seasonal work contributes to a high number of staff leaving, low wages are the biggest reason for people moving on. The industry has four out of the 10 lowest-paid occupations in the country - kitchen porters, bar staff, catering assistants and waiting staff. About 70% of hospitality workers in London are foreign nationals.

Apart from work permits, which are granted only to skilled workers, the Government is now looking at ways to relieve low-skill labour shortages by extending work-holiday schemes to countries about to join the EU and all Commonwealth countries in a bid to meet the economic need through legal means.