Drop-outs, falling enrolments in hospitality courses hinder tourism trade, state Labor says

UPDATED: A “tourism time bomb on top of a crisis” — that’s how one industry leader describes the skills shortage in Tasmania’s hospitality sector.

Tasmanian Labor leader Rebecca White speaking to reporters at Ettie’s in Elizabeth St, Hobart. Picture:

HIGH drop-out rates and falling enrolments in hospitality courses are hampering growth in the state’s tourism industry, says Labor leader Rebecca White.

Figures obtained by the Opposition showed that TAFE figures obtained under right-to-information laws showed the State Government had little chance of meeting its own targets to support 50,000 tourism jobs by 2020, Ms White said.

“We are not training enough Tasmanians to fill the jobs that exist in the tourism and hospitality industry,” she told reporters.

“These alarming figures demonstrate that in 2018, of the 434 people who started a hospitality course at TAFE, just over 200 completed that course.

“And for pre-trade kitchen operations, there were just 101 who started the course and only 30 completed that course.”

Ms White said the Government needed to urgently invest more in boosting training opportunities.

Tasmanian Labor leader Rebecca White with Ettie’ co-owner Carl Windsor. Picture: DAVID KILLICK

Ettie’s restaurant co-owner Carl Windsor said he wasn’t able to operate on Sundays because he could not find enough staff.

“It’s a major issue at the moment, we are finding skills shortages across all facets of the industry — especially in the kitchen at the moment,” he said.

“There’s a chef shortage. I think the first step is to find some training that inspires people to stay in the industry and to actually make a career out of it.”

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Tourism Industry Council of Tasmania chief Luke Matin said the state’s hospitality training system had been underperforming for some time.

“We’ve got a time bomb on top of a crisis,” he said.

“It’s a long-term problem we’ve had as an industry around our skills.

“If we want to be a world-class visitor destination, if we can want Tasmanians to all share in the benefits of a growing economy, it means that we’ve got to provide pathways for more young Tasmanians and more older Tasmanians want to be trained, to be able to have clear training pathways to be able to enter these growth industries.”

He called for a complete overhaul of hospitality training in the state.

Education Minister Jeremy Rockliff said Labor failed to do its sums correctly — and enrolments in hospitality courses were rising.

“What Ms White has failed to acknowledge is that Drysdale will have two more major intakes for hospitality state-wide in 2019, and there will also be more enrolments to come across short courses including bar and hospitality skill sets,” he said.

“Focusing on completion rates is an inaccurate picture of student outcomes and should not be a measure of success as often students obtain employment during their course.

“In the case of Drysdale’s Kitchen Operations qualification, this is designed as a pre-trade course and the aim is for the student to get a job and/or go onto an apprenticeship as a result of this training.

“Completion data only reflects students completing their qualification in that year – it does not capture students who are part-way through their qualification.”

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