Dáil Éireann debate -
Wednesday, 13 Oct 1999

Vol. 509 No. 2

Written Answers. - Tourism Employment.

Michael Bell

Question:

51 Mr. Bell asked the Minister for Tourism, Sport and Recreation the action, if any, he intends to take arising from the recent CERT report which showed that the tourism sector needed to recruit an additional 105,000 workers if the current growth in business is to be maintained; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [19909/99]

Minister for Tourism, Sport and Recreation (Dr. McDaid)

. The tourism industry, as highlighted in Hospitality 2005, prepared by McIver Consulting and Tansey, Webster Stewart, is facing a twin challenge – the challenge of staff retention and staff recruitment. Of the 105,000 people required by the industry over the next five years, 40,000 will be required to fill new positions arising from the continued expansion of the industry. The remainder will be needed to replace staff who will leave the sector.

CERT is working closely with the industry to address these issues by strengthening its role in recruitment, undertaking further strategic research and international practice "benchmarking", as well as facilitating business to adopt human resource management and best operations practice as part of their drive to retain competitiveness. As the McIver study has highlighted, the industry must also focus on building on sustainable competitive advantage, in particular through concentrating more resources on staff retention and development. It will also need to change the way it works – become more productive with the same number of people.

Meanwhile, CERT is continuing to promote recruitment to the industry through a variety of strategic interventions which to date have proven to be effective in maintaining recruitment numbers to formal craft level training. The main objective of these interventions is to highlight to young people, those returning to work and other categories of employees, the advantages of a career in a fast growing successful industry.

These interventions include a national tourism careers roadshow which begins on 8 November and will take place at 36 venues countrywide. About 10,000 students are expected to attend. Schools unable to attend the roadshow will be offered a career talk in their school. This is in addition to the intensive advertising campaigns which CERT runs in the national and local press and on national and local radio.

Tomorrow I will be launching the 1999-2000 edition ofGet a Life in Tourism magazine. This magazine portrays a job in the hospitality sector as an exciting and rewarding career. The magazine is an imaginative joint initiative between the Irish Hotels Federation, CERT and the Restaurants Association of Ireland and is the ideal partnership approach to convince young people that the tourism industry is an attractive business in which to work.

Two other initiatives to which I want to refer are, first, the £1 million area based training pilot scheme in the two unemployment blackspots of Ballymun and Clondalkin. This new scheme offers training and the real prospect of a job in tourism to 230 unemployed people in these locations. Second, CERT has recently announced that a new training facility in Limerick will be operational by early next year. The new training centre will be located at the former Krups factory in Limerick city and will provide capacity for an increase of almost 50 per cent in the number of new trainees in that location. The new centre will concentrate on training unemployed people and those wishing to re-enter the workforce.

The key challenge facing the industry and CERT is to put in place appropriate policies, programmes and arrangements to attract, motivate and retain a skilled labour force in the face of declining labour availability and increasing competition from other sectors. Addressing this challenge will constitute CERT's contribution to the forthcoming national development plan.