A brilliant blend: a socially diverse solution to the employment paradigm of the Western Australian restaurant industry and the impacts of enacted change

The Western Australian economy is booming as a consequence of a resurging mining industry. A severe lack of prospective employees and skills shortages, however, has resulted in significant competition for entry level staff across many industries. The labour intensive restaurant industry has long...

Full description

Bibliographic Details
Main Authors: Higgins, Catherine, Howe, Christina, Taylor, Ruth
Other Authors: Michael Gross
Format: Conference Paper
Published: School of Management, University of South Australia 2011
Subjects:
Online Access:http://hdl.handle.net/20.500.11937/62740
_version_ 1848760906189635584
author Higgins, Catherine
Howe, Christina
Taylor, Ruth
author2 Michael Gross
author_facet Michael Gross
Higgins, Catherine
Howe, Christina
Taylor, Ruth
author_sort Higgins, Catherine
building Curtin Institutional Repository
collection Online Access
description The Western Australian economy is booming as a consequence of a resurging mining industry. A severe lack of prospective employees and skills shortages, however, has resulted in significant competition for entry level staff across many industries. The labour intensive restaurant industry has long utilised marginalised employees and is now reliant on secondary labour markets to meet its human resource requirements. The industry, predisposed to domestic students as employees, is now increasingly reliant on the more marginal employee cohort of international students. This research paper is an exploratory study investigating the value of international students as a reliable source of labour for the Western Australian restaurant industry as perceived by industry employers and industry representatives inclusive of Hospitality Training Providers, the Australian Hotels Association (Western Australia) and the Restaurant and Catering Association. Findings from the respondents suggested that should delinking student visas from permanent migration status occur, the number of international students intending to study in Australia will reduce considerably resulting in reduced numbers of international students available to be employed by the restaurant industry. Respondents further believed that diminishing international student numbers would further labour shortages resulting in unmet customer expectations, increased food and beverage costs and shrinkage to both restaurants individually and the Western Australian restaurant industry as a whole.
first_indexed 2025-11-14T10:23:13Z
format Conference Paper
id curtin-20.500.11937-62740
institution Curtin University Malaysia
institution_category Local University
last_indexed 2025-11-14T10:23:13Z
publishDate 2011
publisher School of Management, University of South Australia
recordtype eprints
repository_type Digital Repository
spelling curtin-20.500.11937-627402018-02-01T05:25:10Z A brilliant blend: a socially diverse solution to the employment paradigm of the Western Australian restaurant industry and the impacts of enacted change Higgins, Catherine Howe, Christina Taylor, Ruth Michael Gross restaurant - industry student visas retention international students skill shortages attraction The Western Australian economy is booming as a consequence of a resurging mining industry. A severe lack of prospective employees and skills shortages, however, has resulted in significant competition for entry level staff across many industries. The labour intensive restaurant industry has long utilised marginalised employees and is now reliant on secondary labour markets to meet its human resource requirements. The industry, predisposed to domestic students as employees, is now increasingly reliant on the more marginal employee cohort of international students. This research paper is an exploratory study investigating the value of international students as a reliable source of labour for the Western Australian restaurant industry as perceived by industry employers and industry representatives inclusive of Hospitality Training Providers, the Australian Hotels Association (Western Australia) and the Restaurant and Catering Association. Findings from the respondents suggested that should delinking student visas from permanent migration status occur, the number of international students intending to study in Australia will reduce considerably resulting in reduced numbers of international students available to be employed by the restaurant industry. Respondents further believed that diminishing international student numbers would further labour shortages resulting in unmet customer expectations, increased food and beverage costs and shrinkage to both restaurants individually and the Western Australian restaurant industry as a whole. 2011 Conference Paper http://hdl.handle.net/20.500.11937/62740 School of Management, University of South Australia restricted
spellingShingle restaurant - industry
student visas
retention
international students
skill shortages
attraction
Higgins, Catherine
Howe, Christina
Taylor, Ruth
A brilliant blend: a socially diverse solution to the employment paradigm of the Western Australian restaurant industry and the impacts of enacted change
title A brilliant blend: a socially diverse solution to the employment paradigm of the Western Australian restaurant industry and the impacts of enacted change
title_full A brilliant blend: a socially diverse solution to the employment paradigm of the Western Australian restaurant industry and the impacts of enacted change
title_fullStr A brilliant blend: a socially diverse solution to the employment paradigm of the Western Australian restaurant industry and the impacts of enacted change
title_full_unstemmed A brilliant blend: a socially diverse solution to the employment paradigm of the Western Australian restaurant industry and the impacts of enacted change
title_short A brilliant blend: a socially diverse solution to the employment paradigm of the Western Australian restaurant industry and the impacts of enacted change
title_sort brilliant blend: a socially diverse solution to the employment paradigm of the western australian restaurant industry and the impacts of enacted change
topic restaurant - industry
student visas
retention
international students
skill shortages
attraction
url http://hdl.handle.net/20.500.11937/62740