With an estimated 500,000 hospitality workers expected to be made redundant or temporarily out of work due to COVID-19, the UK’s largest hospitality jobs board, Caterer.com, and highly-respected trade body, UK Hospitality, have worked together to create a new jobs hub that will help hospitality workers find short-term roles in other sectors.

While the pandemic has reduced the number of hospitality jobs currently available, thousands of job opportunities have been analysed to create the Hospitality Redeployment Hub featuring 26,000 jobs. It has been created to help hospitality workers find suitable jobs until they can return to roles in the sector.

Jobs on the hub have been hand-picked across a range sectors including customer service (7,561 available roles), logistics (8,191 driver roles available) and cleaning (3,285 roles available). Positions include Warehouse Operative, Retail Assistant and Care Assistant at employers including Lidl, Superdrug, Amazon, Hermes and Co-op.

While hospitality has been one of the worst affected industries, the pandemic has seen the creation of thousands of essential new short-term roles and the transferrable skills of hospitality workers make many an ideal fit.

Research from leading jobs board Totaljobs has shown that logistics has seen a 64% increase in vacancies and health and pharmacy a 43% increase.

Neil Pattison, Director at Caterer.com, said: “The team at Caterer.com are acutely aware of the pressure everyone in the hospitality industry is facing, and we’re doing everything we can to help through this devastating time. We’ve partnered with industry body UK Hospitality and industry charity Hospitality Action to make Caterer.com a jobs hub to help displaced hospitality staff find short term employment in other sectors.

“Our connection with Totaljobs and our vast hospitality candidate database means we’re uniquely positioned to help in this way and we’re delighted that we can pull on these resources. All hospitality employees in the UK can directly tap into this free service to search and apply for thousands of roles in sectors such as retail, distribution and care. The hospitality sector is resilient, as are its people. When the industry thrives again, Caterer.com along with its partners will help welcome these candidates back to hospitality.”

Kate Nicholls, Chief Executive from UK Hospitality comments: “The scale of the crisis we are collectively facing is unprecedented, so hospitality businesses have had to make the incredibly difficult decision to lay team members off. We want to give our fantastic workforce all the support we can to help them through this difficult period.

“Caterer.com and Hospitality Action have helped coordinate efforts at a very difficult time. This is another magnificent example of how the sector is supporting its own workers, who are naturally very worried. This initiative will help people find work in other sectors also feeling the strain until the hospitality sector is in a position to help pick up the pieces and bring our hard-working teams back together.”

Mark Lewis, CEO of Hospitality Action comments: “In recent weeks the hospitality industry has had to come to terms with an existential threat. We’re delighted to be standing shoulder to shoulder with Caterer.com and UK Hospitality as they rally together to provide employment opportunities to many thousands of hospitality’s most vulnerable people.

“This innovative solution will enable some of the people currently being awarded crisis grants by Hospitality Action to pay bills and feed their families. Employers can look forward to welcoming an army of highly trained, motivated, passionate and professional hospitality people to their ranks.”

Alongside the new hub for hospitality workers, Caterer.com is also channelling funds, volunteering hours and resources into industry charities such as Hospitality Action and Only A Pavement Away, who now need significant additional help to extend their support to the growing number in the sector who need it. This includes fundraising and re-purposing the Customer Service team to contact those most in need of help in the sector, on behalf of Hospitality Action.

The non-hospitality jobs now appearing on Caterer.com are powered by Totaljobs, one of the UK’s biggest jobs boards which works with some of the UK’s biggest employers. To search and apply and for further advice, support and toolkits visit www.caterer.com

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