Wages in Hospitality: A Mystery Wrapped Up Inside an Enigma?

Abstract

The New Zealand hospitality and tourism industry has many of the poor employment relations and working conditions also seen in the international hospitality sector: low pay, low productivity, low yields, high labour turnover and poor career pathways. Money talks and the spotlight will increasingly come on wages due to raising wage rates, and the possible introduction of a Fair Pay Agreement. These drivers are creating a volatile employment relations environment, where opinions are varied and passionate, but empirical data is scarce. This paper seeks to addresses a significant gap in the academic literature around wages in the hospitality and tourism sector. Data on wages from two online surveys published in 2021 and 2022 show a bleak picture of remuneration and employment conditions in the sector in New Zealand. Firstly, that there are significant issues around low pay and non-compliance with pay legislation in the sector. Secondly, the qualitative data from the open-ended questions shows that employees don’t feel they are being paid sufficiently, clearly want better pay and conditions and believe that higher pay would make the sector a better place to work. Further work is required in this field to address issues around employees being paid fairly and clearly – for greater equity and transparency to ensure this no longer remains the mystery and enigma it has for so long.