Skills shortage boosts top food service salaries

Skills shortages in the food service management industry helped boost salaries for management and chefs by an average of 14% last year, according to an annual survey.

The study, conducted by Mayday Staff Services, reveals stark differences between self-operators and contract caterers. While the average salaries of self-operators rose by 21.2%, contractors saw a below-inflation increase of 1.2%.

The most dramatic increase was for skilled chefs, where salaries rose by more than 50% for those in the self-operator sector. But for waiting and semi-skilled staff it was bleaker news, with wages down on average by 1.5% across all sectors.

Jane Sunley, managing director of Mayday, said the massive increases in some salaries reflected skills shortages.

"Self-operators are having to pay much higher salaries to attract staff. Contract caterers have the name and offer what is seen as more secure employment," she said.

The 1996 Mayday Staff Services Central London Salary Survey, which considered the salaries paid at more than 70 companies in central London, is not alone in predicting problems for employers looking for staff.

Figures from employment agency Manpower, which asked more than 2,200 employers what their recruitment plans were for the three months to the end of this June, suggest that recruitment problems were not going to go away.

The quarterly study, the Manpower Survey of Employment Prospects, shows that 37% of employers in the leisure industry expect to increase employment with just 1% expecting to cut back on staff, giving a balance of 36%.

The optimism shown by leisure industry employers is well above the national average balance of 9% and above the balance for the service sector of 10%.

And in addition to the trend forecast in the Manpower statistics there is the monthly total of advertised job vacancies, compiled by Salary Survey Publications. This again shows an increase in the number of vacancies year on year, with February 1996 ahead by over 11% at 3,971 jobs, compared with 3,568 in February 1995.

Adverts in Caterer & Hotelkeeper, Bristol Evening Post, Birmingham Mail, London's Evening Standard, Manchester Evening News, and the Licensee were included in the survey.

• The 1996 Mayday Staff Services Central London Salary Survey costs £25. Tel: 0171-377 1352. Mayday is also conducting a second research project into personnel issues which will be published this summer.