Hospitality New Zealand has welcomed the results of the 2024 Hospitality and Tourism Employment Survey, commissioned by the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment (MBIE), and produced by Auckland University of Technology.
Steve Armitage, Chief Executive of Hospitality NZ, says “This year’s report highlights real progress on behalf of employers to increase workplace satisfaction for their teams, with concentrated effort on improving best practice and better training availability.
“Hospitality is focused on being a sector of choice and improving our employees’ experiences in our industry. We are pleased to see advancement has been made, as understanding how our workforce feels is key to ensuring progress continues.”
Key Measures
The 2024 survey showed significant improvements on the 2022 survey findings, with increases across many key measures:
- 57.2% of respondents indicated training opportunities were good, up from 40.5% in 2022
- Overall job satisfaction increased to 67.5% in 2024 vs 62.2% in 2022
- The percentage of respondents indicating they intended to leave the hospitality and tourism sector dramatically reduced to 18.3% in 2024 vs 33.7% in 2022.
The report also indicates 91% of respondents cared about being productive in their jobs, and 90% felt they had the skills to do their jobs with confidence.
Armitage says: “While we’re pleased with progress, we are not ignoring there are some challenges we as a sector need to front up to.
Bullying Concerns
“No change in the number of respondents who reported experiencing bullying or harassment from the 2022 survey is concerning, as is a number of respondents indicating they could not always access their entitlements to breaks and sick leave.
“While some of these challenges are not just specific to tourism and hospitality, there is room for improvement, and we look forward to discussing how we can advance these issues at the Hospitality Summit, held next week.”
The Summit will be held on December 12, 2024, aimed at facilitating dialogue and collaboration, ensuring that the hospitality sector can actively contribute to developing solutions that shape future government policy-making. A range of opportunities across eight categories will be discussed, with specific focus on employment, and skills and training.