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Millions of young people could help fill the hospitality industry talent gap, while the United States and countries around the world are fighting the shortage with new workforce strategies.
Millions of young people could help fill the hospitality industry talent gap, but the United States and countries around the world are now fighting the shortage with new workforce strategies. Across the sector, employers are looking beyond traditional recruitment as vacancies, changing workforce expectations and skills gaps reshape hospitality.
Meanwhile, training, inclusion and career development are becoming increasingly important to building a stronger workforce. Duong My Phuc of STREETS International says the industry must look beyond the résumé and recognise potential among vulnerable talent. His message adds a powerful human dimension to a global challenge: hospitality needs more workers, and millions of young people may represent an overlooked opportunity.
The global hospitality industry is confronting a workforce problem that cannot be solved simply by posting more vacancies. Hotels, resorts, restaurants and tourism businesses are increasingly turning to immigration pathways, vocational education, worker housing, skills programmes and technology to keep services running as labour shortages persist.
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From the United States’ seasonal-worker programmes to Germany’s apprenticeship model, Japan’s structured foreign-worker pathways and Italy’s investment in accommodation for seasonal employees, countries are taking markedly different approaches to the same challenge.
The United States has developed one of the most established mechanisms for bringing temporary international workers into sectors that face seasonal labour shortages.
For hospitality businesses, the H-2B temporary non-agricultural worker programme allows eligible US employers to recruit foreign workers for temporary positions when they cannot find sufficient qualified US workers and when employing additional workers will not adversely affect the wages and working conditions of similarly employed US workers.
Hotels, resorts and tourism businesses can also benefit from the J-1 Summer Work Travel programme, which allows eligible international university students to experience life in the United States while working in seasonal or temporary positions.
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The attraction of these programmes is straightforward. Tourism demand can rise sharply during summer holidays, winter ski seasons and other peak periods, creating staffing requirements that are difficult for some destinations to satisfy entirely from their permanent local workforce.
However, international recruitment is only one part of the American response. Hospitality companies are also investing in recruitment technology, employee benefits, training and productivity improvements as competition for workers remains intense.
The US model therefore illustrates a broader global reality: when tourism demand is seasonal, businesses need a workforce that can expand and contract with visitor numbers.
Australia is taking a broader approach to its hospitality workforce challenge.
The country’s tourism economy depends heavily on accommodation, food services and visitor-facing businesses, many of which have historically employed large numbers of younger and part-time workers. Recruitment pressures can become particularly pronounced in destinations where tourism activity is concentrated geographically or seasonally.
Australia has therefore combined skills development, domestic recruitment and skilled migration.
The country’s Skills in Demand visa provides an employer-sponsored pathway for appropriately skilled international workers where businesses cannot find suitably skilled Australian workers. This gives employers another mechanism for addressing persistent vacancies while maintaining a formal skills-based migration framework.
The approach is significant because migration is not being treated as the entire solution. Australia’s visitor-economy policy also places emphasis on developing a secure and resilient workforce and improving the industry’s ability to attract and retain people.
For hotels and tourism operators, that means the long-term challenge is not merely finding someone to fill today’s vacancy. It is building a workforce capable of supporting continued tourism growth.
Germany offers one of the clearest examples of how vocational education can be used to address hospitality workforce shortages.
The country’s famous dual vocational training system combines practical workplace experience with formal classroom education. Hospitality occupations are incorporated into this system, allowing young people and other trainees to acquire recognised skills while working in hotels, restaurants and related businesses.
More than 51,000 people were undertaking hospitality vocational training in Germany in 2025.
The model has an important advantage: employers are not entirely dependent on recruiting experienced workers from an already limited labour pool.
Instead, companies can participate in developing their future employees.
Germany is also increasingly drawing international workers into vocational education. This creates a potential bridge between immigration and skills development, particularly as the country’s ageing population places additional pressure on the wider labour market.
For hospitality, the lesson is clear: training someone for the industry can be as important as recruiting someone into it.
Japan faces a particularly difficult demographic challenge.
An ageing population and declining domestic workforce are putting pressure on industries that depend heavily on frontline service employees. Hospitality is one of the sectors affected.
Japan has responded by expanding opportunities for foreign workers through its Specified Skilled Worker system.
The programme provides a formal pathway for overseas workers to enter designated industries, including accommodation and food-service-related occupations, provided they meet the required conditions and skills standards.
Japan has also been developing a new Employment for Skill Development system designed to create a more structured route for foreign workers to acquire skills and Japanese-language ability before progressing towards longer-term skilled employment.
This is a different philosophy from simply filling a vacancy.
The objective is to create a workforce that can function effectively within the country’s service economy, understand workplace requirements and potentially remain in the labour market for longer.
For hospitality businesses, where communication and customer interaction are fundamental, that combination of skills and language development can be particularly important.
Italy is demonstrating that hospitality workforce shortages cannot always be solved through recruitment alone.
In many popular tourist destinations, the cost and availability of accommodation have become a serious barrier for seasonal workers. A hotel may have a vacant position, but potential employees may struggle to find somewhere affordable to live near the workplace.
Italy has responded with a distinctive measure.
Its Staff House initiative provides funding for accommodation aimed at seasonal tourism workers. The programme allocates €120 million for 2025–2027 to help create housing capacity in destinations where seasonal labour demand is particularly high.
This approach recognises an often-overlooked relationship between tourism infrastructure and labour supply.
A destination needs hotels for visitors, but it also needs homes for the people who operate those hotels.
Italy is simultaneously investing in tourism skills, professional development and migration pathways, creating a more comprehensive workforce strategy.
Spain’s tourism economy is enormous, making workforce sustainability a national priority.
Rather than concentrating exclusively on recruitment, Spain is placing considerable emphasis on professionalisation, training and the quality of tourism employment.
The country’s Tourism 2030 strategy includes a dedicated Talent Programme, designed to strengthen the skills and attractiveness of tourism careers while preparing workers for major changes affecting the industry.
Training increasingly covers areas such as digitalisation, sustainability and innovation.
This matters because hospitality faces a retention problem as well as a recruitment problem.
If workers see tourism jobs as temporary positions with limited career progression, businesses can struggle to retain experienced employees. By increasing professional recognition and providing opportunities to develop new skills, governments and industry bodies can make hospitality a more credible long-term career.
Portugal has taken another practical route by focusing on the integration of migrant workers.
The country’s tourism industry has experienced strong employment demand, and migrant labour has become increasingly important to the sector.
The Integrar para o Turismo programme combines technical training, Portuguese-language support and employer intermediation.
That combination addresses several problems simultaneously.
A worker may be available, but availability does not automatically mean suitability. Hospitality requires communication, customer-service skills, cultural awareness and knowledge of workplace procedures.
By combining language education with technical preparation and employer matching, Portugal is attempting to make international recruitment more effective rather than treating migration as a simple numbers exercise.
The UK hospitality sector continues to face significant recruitment and retention challenges, particularly for chefs and operational positions.
One response has been the development of the Hospitality Skills Passport.
The concept is straightforward but potentially important: workers can maintain a digital record of their skills and competencies, giving them a clearer way to demonstrate what they can do when moving between employers.
This could reduce some of the friction involved in hospitality recruitment.
Instead of repeatedly starting from scratch, workers can carry evidence of their training and capabilities with them.
The UK hospitality industry is also pressing for stronger apprenticeship and training mechanisms, recognising that the sector needs both entry-level workers and people capable of progressing into supervisory and management positions.
Canada is approaching the issue partly through labour-market intelligence.
The country’s tourism industry faces workforce challenges linked to population changes, regional labour shortages, housing costs and the seasonal nature of many tourism jobs.
Canada’s federal tourism strategy has therefore identified rebuilding the tourism workforce as an important priority.
The government is supporting initiatives designed to improve labour-market information, develop training resources and help businesses understand where workforce gaps are emerging.
Tourism HR Canada is among the organisations involved in projects designed to strengthen national tourism workforce intelligence.
This approach may appear less immediate than immigration or recruitment incentives, but accurate information can determine whether governments train the right workers, target the right regions and identify the occupations where intervention is most urgently required.
Austria provides another example of a country where tourism seasonality shapes workforce policy.
Alpine tourism destinations can experience dramatic changes in employment requirements between peak winter and summer periods.
The country therefore uses seasonal-worker mechanisms to help tourism businesses manage demand.
Austria increased its tourism seasonal-worker quota for 2026 to approximately 8,000, providing substantially greater capacity than in previous years.
The approach is particularly relevant to resorts where a permanent year-round workforce may not be economically practical.
Ireland is tackling hospitality workforce pressure through subsidised training and digital education.
The country’s Skills to Advance programme provides subsidised training for employees, including people working in hospitality and tourism.
Fáilte Ireland has also developed LearniFI, an online learning platform containing hundreds of courses and resources.
The strategy is designed to allow workers to upgrade their skills while remaining connected to employment.
That matters in hospitality, where employees cannot always leave work for lengthy full-time education programmes.
At HORECFEX Vietnam, STREETS International Executive Director Duong My Phuc spoke to TTW Now about inclusive hiring, vulnerable talent, sustainability, technology and why travellers increasingly want experiences with meaning.
The hospitality industry is facing a familiar challenge: businesses need people, while many potential workers remain outside traditional recruitment pipelines. For Duong My Phuc, Executive Director of STREETS International, part of the answer lies in changing how the industry identifies and supports talent.
Speaking exclusively to TTW Now at HORECFEX Vietnam, Phuc described his experience working with vulnerable and disadvantaged young people and outlined why hospitality employers should look beyond conventional résumés when considering potential employees.
His message was direct: vulnerability should not be confused with a lack of intelligence, motivation or ability.
Instead, he argued, employers need to consider what support can help people demonstrate their capabilities and become productive members of the workforce.
Phuc said he has been with STREETS International since 2009, joining shortly after the organisation was established. During that period, he has worked with vulnerable and disadvantaged young people and witnessed what he described as the transformation of more than 500 young people.
He recalled seeing young people arrive at STREETS unsure of themselves and later contact the organisation to share news of promotions in hotels or restaurants.
For Phuc, those individual career developments have been a major source of motivation.
The experience has also shaped his understanding of what hospitality can offer beyond employment alone: an opportunity for people who may face difficult circumstances to develop skills, build careers and create new possibilities for themselves and others.
Phuc said he had just taken part in a panel discussion focused on the challenges and opportunities involved in hiring vulnerable talent when he spoke with TTW Now.
He described himself as energised by the attendance at sessions addressing vulnerable young people and particularly encouraged by the interest shown by hospitality and industry leaders.
According to Phuc, the event provided an opportunity to network with people who share an interest in celebrating differences and increasing diversity within hospitality.
He also pointed to organisations working with other groups, including people with disabilities, as evidence of a broader conversation around inclusion in hospitality recruitment.
For STREETS, the focus extends beyond disadvantaged young people facing challenging economic circumstances.
Phuc said the organisation also works with young people with backgrounds involving HIV, drug issues and domestic violence, while its work has expanded to single mothers. He added that STREETS planned to expand its programme by the end of 2026 to include young people with occupational and learning impairments.
One of Phuc’s strongest observations concerned what he called the opportunity to unlock hidden talent in Vietnam’s hospitality market.
During the interview, he referred to millions of disadvantaged young people and argued that some need only encouragement and an opportunity to enter the industry.
He connected that opportunity with the human-resources challenges discussed at HORECFEX Vietnam, referring to a figure from the panel discussion that indicated businesses were still unable to recruit a significant proportion of the people they needed.
Importantly, the interview transcript does not identify the underlying report or methodology behind that figure, so it should be understood as a point raised during the event rather than an independently verified industry statistic.
For Phuc, however, the central issue is clear: there is a gap between people who need opportunities and hospitality businesses that need talent.
STREETS is attempting to address part of that gap through its training and employment approach.
Technology was another subject discussed during the TTW Now interview.
Phuc said technology can help automate many processes across hospitality. His argument is not simply that automation can make operations more efficient. He sees an opportunity for technology to free people from some tasks so they can devote more time and energy to areas where human interaction remains critical.
For him, one of those areas is empathy.
Phuc described empathy as an important element of hospitality success because the guest experience ultimately depends on how businesses interact with customers.
He believes hospitality businesses that use technology intelligently can integrate training and approaches designed to develop people’s empathy while technology takes care of other processes.
That perspective places technology and human skills alongside each other rather than treating them as competing forces.
At STREETS, sustainability is described by Phuc as one of the organisation’s core values.
He explained that the approach goes beyond teaching someone to perform a job. The objective is to provide training that can help a person pursue a career and, in turn, generate wider social impact for their family and community.
Phuc highlighted examples of former graduates who secured employment and later established businesses that created jobs for other people.
He also described a graduate who, alongside running her business, provides free tour-guide and English training to more than 100 young people from ethnic-minority communities.
For Phuc, this represents a sustainability cycle in which the impact of training can extend beyond the original participant.
STREETS also incorporates environmental practices into its operations and training.
Phuc cited the organisation’s avoidance of plastic straws and plastic bags, as well as its practice of recycling graduation banners into tote bags for merchandise.
He also said food waste from its restaurant is collected by a pig farmer to feed pigs.
These practices, according to Phuc, are incorporated not only into the organisation’s business operations but also into training so participants can carry the principles with them after completing the programme.
When asked what guests are looking for in 2026, Phuc identified three priorities.
The first is experiences with meaning.
The second is authentic human connection.
The third is transparency and trust.
He said reviews of STREETS’ restaurant and cooking-class experiences demonstrate the importance of human connection. According to Phuc, guests frequently discuss the trainees rather than focusing exclusively on the product itself.
That interaction can make the social dimension of the experience visible to travellers. Guests are able to meet the young people involved in delivering the experience and recognise their contribution directly.
This is particularly relevant to the growing interest in experiences that connect tourism with local communities and social impact, although Phuc’s comments are specifically based on his observations of STREETS’ own experiences and guest feedback.
Phuc also outlined several initiatives that have shaped STREETS since the second half of 2025.
The organisation introduced single mothers into its programme in September 2025.
He said STREETS had learned from other programmes that some single mothers could leave training because they needed to care for their children. Its approach was therefore to bring both mothers and their children into the programme and provide basic childcare support.
The approach illustrates a broader principle in Phuc’s thinking: inclusion is not necessarily achieved simply by opening a programme to a particular group. The surrounding barriers also have to be considered.
Another initiative discussed was the STREETS Global Awards.
Phuc said the awards were launched for the first time in 2025 to recognise early-stage, mission-driven organisations working in tourism and hospitality while generating social impact.
He said the first cycle received more than 400 registrations and applications from across six continents, with four winners celebrated at the end of that year.
STREETS is continuing the Global Awards in 2026 and is also looking at organisations that have been operating for less than a year.
Phuc described the awards as a way of expanding STREETS’ impact without necessarily expanding the organisation itself — by recognising and celebrating other organisations creating social impact around the world.
The organisation’s other planned initiative is to broaden its beneficiary base by training young people with occupational and learning impairments by the end of 2026.
Phuc’s final message to the hospitality industry was perhaps the clearest summary of the interview.
He urged employers to look beyond the résumé when considering vulnerable talent.
His argument is that recruitment should not focus exclusively on what a candidate can already do. Employers should also consider how they can support someone who may face vulnerabilities.
Being vulnerable, he stressed, does not mean a person lacks intelligence, motivation or ability.
The challenge is to identify what can be done to maximise that person’s abilities and create an environment where they can perform and contribute alongside other employees.
For hospitality businesses confronting recruitment pressures, the proposition is straightforward: talent cannot always be identified through conventional credentials alone.
For STREETS International, the work is about creating pathways through training, employment, social enterprise and wider support. For Phuc, the longer-term objective is not simply to place people in jobs, but to help them build careers and, ultimately, create opportunities for others.
The conversation at HORECFEX Vietnam therefore offered a broader view of hospitality talent. The industry’s future, in Phuc’s account, may depend not only on finding people with the right experience, but also on recognising potential in people who have historically been overlooked.
“Hospitality has always been powered by people, and this conversation highlights why talent development must remain at the heart of the industry’s future. Duong My Phuc’s perspective is particularly valuable because it moves the discussion beyond recruitment numbers and towards opportunity, inclusion and human potential. At Travel And Tour World, we believe stories that connect tourism with meaningful social impact deserve greater attention. The possibility of helping young people build careers while enabling hospitality businesses to address workforce challenges is both encouraging and important. This is a powerful reminder that the next generation of hospitality talent may be found where traditional recruitment methods have not looked closely enough.” says, Anup Kumar Keshan, Editor-in-Chief, TTW
The international response to hospitality labour shortages reveals a significant shift.
The United States and Austria are using international and seasonal workers to respond to immediate gaps. Germany is strengthening vocational pipelines. Japan is developing structured pathways for foreign workers. Italy is addressing the housing barrier. Spain is focusing on career development and professionalisation. Portugal is combining migration with language and technical training. Britain is making skills more portable, while Canada is improving workforce intelligence.
There is no single solution.
The strongest strategies increasingly combine recruitment, retention, training, migration, housing and technology.
For the hospitality industry, this distinction is crucial. A hotel can fill a vacancy today and still face the same problem six months later if the employee leaves because wages, accommodation, career progression or working conditions are inadequate.
The countries making the greatest structural progress are therefore moving beyond the question of “Where can we find more workers?”
They are asking a much larger question: “How can we build a hospitality workforce that people can enter, develop within and afford to remain part of?”
That shift could define the next phase of global tourism growth.
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Tags: Hospitality Industry, hospitality jobs, hospitality talent, inclusive hiring, Talent Shortage, Workforce Strategies, Young Workers
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Friday, September 4, 2026
Friday, September 4, 2026
Friday, September 4, 2026
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