The global hospitality industry likes to tell a comeback story: travel is booming, rooms are full, and restaurant bookings are hard to get.
But behind the bar, in housekeeping corridors, and inside hotel kitchens, the numbers tell a different story: the labour crisis never really ended. It just changed shape.
A global shortfall measured in millions
According to new analysis from the World Travel & Tourism Council (WTTC), the wider travel and tourism sector is on track to face a 43-million worker shortfall by 2035 if nothing changes. Within that, hospitality alone is expected to be short 8.6 million workers, roughly 18% below the staffing levels the industry will actually need. (World Travel & Tourism Council)
The biggest gaps are forecast in:
- China (16.9 million workers short)
- India (11 million)
- The European Union (6.4 million)
Most of the pressure is in low- and mid-skilled roles that rely on face-to-face service—the exact jobs that are hardest to automate or offshore. (World Travel & Tourism Council)
In other words: the part of hospitality that is hospitality—human interaction—is the part running out of people.
Inside the hotels: 65% still can’t fully staff up
Survey data from early 2025 suggests that the labour squeeze is still a daily operational problem, not an abstract future threat.
A cluster of studies point in the same direction:
- A WTTC–backed analysis of hotel operators shows nearly two-thirds of hotels (around 65%) report ongoing staffing shortages, even after pay rises and hiring incentives. Business Travel News+1
- A separate breakdown shared by hospitality tech firm CiHMS reports 65% of surveyed hotels facing staffing gaps, 9% describing themselves as “severely understaffed,” and 71% with roles they simply cannot filldespite active recruitment. Housekeeping, front desk and culinary positions are consistently flagged as the hardest to recruit. (CiHMS)
That “severely understaffed” label isn’t a cosmetic problem. It means:
- Fewer room attendants covering more rooms
- Smaller kitchen brigades doing the same or bigger covers
- Front office teams stretched thin across check-in, phones, and guest messaging
A wellbeing survey by UK charity Hospitality Action puts it more bluntly: 57% of hospitality workers say understaffing is now their main workplace challenge, up sharply on the previous year, with many reporting longer hours, skipped breaks and constant pressure. Hospitality Action
The UK: a warning case, not an outlier
In the UK, the staffing issue is layered on top of rising taxes, wage increases and changing immigration rules.
Recent analysis from recruitment and staffing firms, as well as official labour data, points to:
- Tens of thousands of hospitality jobs lost over the past year, reversing post-pandemic gains and marking one of the largest non-pandemic contractions in decades. Selective Personnel
- Industry bodies warning that higher employer national insurance (payroll tax) and minimum wage increases will force many operators to cut staff, reduce trading hours or close entirely. The Guardian
A pre-existing pattern documented by European trade group HOTREC is now hard to miss: when businesses cannot staff fully, they close certain days of the week, limit services to lunch or dinner only, or shut off parts of the property just to cope. HOTREC
In short: the UK is showing, in real time, how a tight labour market plus rising costs can turn into shorter opening hours, fewer services, and fewer jobs.
“Just hire more staff is not a strategy
If there were enough people who wanted these jobs, the problem would be solved by now. But a range of studies suggests the pool of willing workers has structurally shrunk.
Key forces converging:
- Demographics & expectations – Younger workers are less willing to accept low pay, unstable schedules and aggressive kitchen or service cultures as “normal.” Hospitality Net
- Competing sectors – Retail, logistics, warehousing and gig-economy work often offer similar or better pay with more predictable hours—and less emotional labour. PwC
- Migration politics – In markets like the UK and parts of the EU, tighter immigration rules have reduced the flow of workers who historically filled hospitality roles. In the US, industry bodies are openly lobbying for expanded visa programs to cover over a million open hotel and hospitality jobs. Reuters
Analysts writing for Hospitality Net and other industry platforms keep returning to the same conclusion: demand is rebounding faster than the workforce, and recruitment is getting harder, not easier, even when operators raise pay and add perks. Hospitality Net
What it looks like on the floor
The statistics translate into highly visible operational changes:
- Rooms out of order – Not because of broken air-con, but because there aren’t enough room attendants to clean and turn them.
- Closed F&B outlets – Second restaurants, bars or lounges operating on restricted days or hours because there aren’t enough chefs or servers to run them. HOTREC
- Slimmer menus – Not always a “concept choice,” but a staffing reality: fewer hands on the line means fewer moving parts on the menu.
- Overstretched teams – A two-person line covering a service that used to have four, or a single supervisor doing the work of what used to be a supervisor plus duty manager. Hospitality Action
For guests, this can show up as longer waits, slower housekeeping, reduced amenity access—and higher prices on top.
The old model is dead: “cheap labour + long hours + unlimited resilience”
Taken together, the data points at a blunt conclusion.
If your business model still assumes:
cheap labour + long hours + unlimited resilience
…it is already dead. It just doesn’t know it yet.
Multiple consultancies and audit firms have flagged that labour costs are now rising faster than revenue for many hospitality companies, forcing a rethink of how work is organised and rewarded. PwC
Workers themselves are voting with their feet:
- Leaving the industry entirely
- Moving to sectors with clearer career paths
- Refusing to return to employers with reputations for toxic cultures
The talent pool is no longer infinite, and reputations travel quickly.
What the survivors are doing differently
Across interviews, opinion pieces and case studies, a pattern is emerging around operators who are coping better with the new reality. Broadly, they are doing three things.
1. Pay properly and build real careers
This isn’t just about headline wage increases. It’s about:
- Transparent salary bands and progression
- Funded training and recognised qualifications
- Scheduling that allows a life outside work
Where hotels and restaurant groups have strongly improved pay, added benefits and promoted clear career ladders, surveys show they are more successful at hiring and keeping staff, even in tight labour markets. HOTELSMag.com Business Travel News
2. Fix toxic kitchen and service cultures
A growing body of research and worker testimony links understaffing with harassment, burnout and mental-health issues across the sector. Hospitality Action
Forward-looking operators are:
- Training managers on modern leadership, not just technical skills
- Removing “shouting as management” from kitchens and service areas
- Offering mental-health support and realistic staffing levels
This isn’t HR fluff; it’s risk management. A toxic culture in 2025 doesn’t just cost you people—it costs you brand, recruitment power and, often, legal fees.
3. Use tech and AI to remove friction, not replace humanity
Hospitality Net and other industry analysts expect automation and AI to reduce labour demand in some repetitive or back-office tasks, especially where companies struggle to hire. Hospitality Net
Examples include:
- Automated scheduling and rota tools
- AI-assisted revenue management and forecasting
- Digital check-in, keyless entry and basic guest messaging
The crucial dividing line: in healthier operations, tech takes away low-value admin and frees staff to spend time on guests. In weaker ones, tech is used to simply cut headcount, leaving remaining workers with even more to do and guests with a colder experience.
Why this matters beyond the industry
This labour crisis isn’t just an internal hospitality problem. It affects:
- Travellers, who will see reduced service, fewer options and higher prices
- Local economies, where restaurants, cafés and hotels are major employers and anchors of street life
- Food and agricultural systems, because fewer skilled chefs and operators can also mean more reliance on convenience products and less capacity to work with fresh, local supply chains
It also ties directly into wider lifestyle and sustainability conversations—what we eat, how we travel, what kind of cities and destinations we want to live in.
That’s why serious hospitality reporting now sits alongside coverage of sustainability, labour rights, urban policy and food culture, not in a separate “travel fluff” section.
The bottom line
The numbers say it clearly:
- A projected 8.6 million worker gap in hospitality by 2035
- Around 65% of hotels still reporting staffing shortages in early 2025
- Whole national sectors warning of job losses, reduced hours and closures as costs and staffing pressures collide
The labour crisis in hospitality didn’t “end” after COVID. It evolved into a structural shortage combined with higher expectations—from workers, regulators and guests.
Operators that make it through this decade are likely to be the ones who:
- Treat people as the core asset, not an endlessly replaceable cost
- Design work that is sustainable for human beings, not just spreadsheets
- Use technology to support hospitality, not erase it
Everyone else is effectively running a countdown clock.
