The Ever-Changing Menu for Hospitality: Three Burning Questions Leaders Need to Be Asking

By: Kirsty Aldous-Wilson, Communications Specialist

As the UK labour market cools professionals at all levels, from prospective employees to C-suite executives, are beginning to feel the sting.

PolecatX’s sentiment tracker shows discussion of “staff shortages” falling 18% since January 2025, while flags around “cost cutting” and “automation” rise. Below we explore key questions leaders keep asking.

Is the talent crunch over - or just different?

Burning question With unemployment in the UK reaching 4.7 %, its highest in four years, and 140 applicants per graduate vacancy, have we moved from a ‘war for talent’ to a ‘fight for shifts’?

So what? A larger CV pile, or list, doesn’t equal a deeper skills pool. More applicants often means longer screening cycles, higher churn, and fewer candidates with direct experience.

Case study Nando’s employee turnover decreased by 4% after the publication of their automated and personalised app created in partnership with Made By Many. Alongside centralising and revitalising the rota system, the app mitigated time investments into applicants who ‘ghosted’ after showing interest. On the other side of these processes, Teach First (a UK education company) has reshaped their hiring process toward trialling real work scenarios to select candidates.

If immigration tightens, where will the next wave of skilled workers come from?

Burning question The May 2025 White Paper raises salary thresholds and tightens student routes. Can home-grown training fill the gap?

So what? The UK government is investing £3 billion in job training to bolster home-grown talent, but despite the hospitality industry’s reliance on international recruitment they are not regarded an initial priority. Operators are facing challenges from all angles. Mapping priority roles to new visa bands and capturing government funding to improve employee retention and skill level in order to balance the rise in NICs and wages is only the beginning of the story.

Case study Greene King is increasing its commitment to apprenticeships as a means of driving social mobility, with the aim of retaining workers within the sector by supplying both openings and skills training.

Can AI protect margins without killing jobs?

Burning question Keir Starmer believes the UK workforce must 'push past' their anxieties over AI. Will AI open opportunities and, as Starmer puts it make us ‘more human’, or diminish the workforce further?

So what? As outlined in our previous post, PolecatX data demonstrates that AI and automation are fuelling mistrust in innovation for the hospitality sector. Technological advancements are repeatedly blamed or discussed as drivers behind the narrowed job market, especially for graduates and entry-level workers. Smart AI deployment converts fixed labour costs into variable costs that meet customer demands.

Case study McDonald’s plan to increase investment into AI by 2027 signals, and promotes, a move towards automation in the sector. McDonald’s investment illustrates a faith in AI that undermines the idea of automation as an avoidable gamble. Despite increasing concern over AI, companies that don’t develop this element of their services face being left behind. The value will be in how companies redeploy saved hours rather than how many hours are cut.

Four ways Polecat equips hospitality leaders to act with confidence

1. Provides actionable insight PolecatX delivers rapid, hallucination-free insight on any topic, company, concern, or interest. We don’t set limits. Our platform lets you configure dashboards around your risk taxonomies. Whether you're preparing for a board meeting or investigating a specific threat, the right insight is always at your fingertips. Giving you foresight rather than retrospective reporting.

   
   

2. Embed AI-enhanced insight in day-to-day operations Polecat’s enriched sentiment and news data can flow directly into workforce-management, inventory, or demand-forecasting systems via our API. Each briefing distills millions of data points into the few issues that actually matter, helping you prioritise response and guide action.

   
   

3.  Substantiate your talent and technology narrative Use Polecat to track how your brand resonate across news, social, and review platforms. Benchmark performance against peers and identify emerging concerns

   
   

4. Provides responsible business intelligence The overwhelmingly negative sentiment towards policy movements in relation to the UK Labour Market exposes a lack of faith. Navigating risk and reputation is becoming ever more challenging as the two increasingly overlap and obscure one another. Polecat filters out the noise to detangle risk and reputation, providing actionable insight that allows you to address both – all in one platform.