What is it about?

The article discusses how in many western contexts, although young people form a high proportion of the hospitality workforce, perceptions of hospitality work as temporary and unpredictable rather than an aspirational career choice means turnover is very high. The aim of the study on which the article is based was to investigate why people build and maintain long careers working in hospitality. This article focuses on the career experiences of young workers in the industry, viewed from the perspective of older workers in long-term hospitality careers. An intersectional methodology explored how youthful body-age, at times interacting with other aspects of socially ascribed difference, is reflected in work-place organizational processes. The findings suggest that younger workers in hospitality are not valued and the discussion addresses the ways in which inequitable power relations create this status quo. The conclusion is that the hospitality sector should retain its youthful workers, rather than wasting this finite human resource.

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Why is it important?

Many articles about hospitality employment focus on ageism towards older employees. This article focuses on negative attitudes towards young people that disadvantage them in hospitality employment.

Perspectives

Social justice concerns about the low wages ‘tax’ paid by young worker prompted me to write a conference article that suggested that young people were “wasted by their hospitality employers. The paper won a highly commended award from critical international journal Hospitality & Society for drawing attention to youth disadvantages in employment and I was invited to submit an article, which was published online 8 months later. In the accompanying editorial “Corporate social responsibility – emancipating wage slaves” Prof Emeritus Conrad Lashley commented that the article “considers some of these issues of corporate social responsibility through an examination of the employment of youth workers in the industry”.

Dr Shelagh K Mooney
Auckland University of Technology

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This page is a summary of: Wasted youth in the hospitality industry: Older workers’ perceptions and misperceptions about younger workers, Hospitality & Society, March 2016, Intellect,
DOI: 10.1386/hosp.6.1.9_1.
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