Catering holds its own despite Brexit fears
Research made available this week suggests that the catering sector has so far withstood fears of a downturn in the wake of the Brexit vote.
The data, which comes from independent job site, CV-Library and includes statistics for Northern Ireland – has revealed an increase in jobs, salaries and candidate applications for August.
The job site compared data from August 2016 with August last year and found that catering jobs were up by 24.8 per cent last month (outpacing the national average of 21.8 per cent), suggesting that employers in the sector haven’t shied away from hiring new staff throughout the summer months.
And the story is even better from an NI perspective – figures published by CV-Library reveal a jobs boost for the sector of 38.9 per cent year-on-year, alongside a jump in local salaries of 1.9 per cent since August 2015 and a 4.9 per cent year-on-year increase in the number of job applications received in the sector.
Lee Biggins, founder and managing director of CV-Library says that it’s “extremely positive” to see that the catering industry’s labour market hasn’t fallen victim to the ‘summer slowdown’ this year:
“Our data tells us that catering is one of the key sectors in the UK which is thriving and it’s clear that employers in the area have recognised the need to tap into candidates who might have used time-off during the summer months to think about, and look for, new opportunities,” he adds.
The data also revealed that salaries in the catering sector across the UK increased by 7.6 per cent in August, outpacing the national average of 4.7 per cent and taking the catering industry into the top ten sectors for salary growth in the UK.
