Finding the staff

Today's announcement of a drop in overall jobless figures may be good news for the government, and the economy, but there are many industry sectors that are struggling because they can't find stafff with the required skills.

The hotel and catering industry is one of them. And in the South East, the shortfall is being sharply felt.

In 1999, Newbury had the lowest unemployment rate in the UK and despite a slight rise in unemployment, it's still a struggle for the area's hotels to meet their high staffing demands.

The Coppid Beach Hotel employs 110 staff, but there's a shortfall of around 40 jobs.

Alan Blenkinsop, the hotel manager, has gone to great lengths to fill the vacancies.

Housing costs are a big barrier to staff coming to the area so the Coppid Beach now offers live-in accomodation.

"House prices are a major problem... we've resolved that by renting two local houses that provide accomodation for 16 staff and we've built 49 live-in staff bedrooms in the roof of the hotel," says Alan.

Staff in the rented accomodation have their rent subsidised.

League of Nations

Finding local staff is especially problematic so Alan has been looking further afield to Europe, South Africa, Australia and New Zealand for workers.

One third of staff at the hotel are from overseas.

"There's not an English person in sight here in the bar. I don't know why English people don't work here, but for travellers like us, it's a great way to work and meet people." says Georgia Harrisson from South Africa.

Low wages

The catering and hotel industry is synonomous with poor pay, so Alan is having to pay above average wages.

"In this part of the world we're all competing for a very small market of available staff.

"Our rates of pay are very high in comparison with the rest of the industry and we have to compete."

"We also offer six month contracts and train staff to a very high standard."

But with local unemployment at less than 1%, businesses like these are always going to struggle to find workers to meet the vacant posts.