The government is being urged to ease Brexit visa regulations to help plug the hospitality recruitment gap.

Sacha Lord, one of the UK’s four night-time economy advisers, has called for a relaxation of current visa rules to allow international entry-level hospitality staff to enter the workforce.

He is seeking support from the Migration Advisory Committee (MAC) to help place entry-level hospitality roles, including waiters, line cooks, and hotel receptionists onto the government’s shortage occupation list, which offers lower barriers of entry and reduced visa fees for certain professions.

Lord’s plea comes as data analysts, CGA, report one in seven hospitality jobs are now unfilled, impeding business to the tune of 16% of revenues.

Nearly half (45%) of businesses have reduced trading hours, and a third have had to close for at least a day due to skills shortages.

Meanwhile, 77% of operators have increased pay to retain and attract staff, resulting in an 11% increase in average pay levels for hospitality staff over the past 12 months.

Lord, a night time economy adviser for Greater Manchester, said the right to work and live in the UK is now considerably more restricted for EU citizens and described the challenge as “significantly impacting employers and creating a relentless employment gap in a sector already ravaged by debt burdens and weakened consumer spending”.

“We have not yet seen a realistic or pragmatic approach to stemming this recruitment crisis despite countless warnings from the hospitality sector that this crisis would not only come to fruition, but escalate post-Covid,” Lord said.

“We were promised that bilateral relations with countries such as Australia will ease the difficulties, but two years on from our official exit from the European Union, and we still do not have any immediate, credible policies in place to aid businesses in their time of need.

“We require an urgent review of the visa restrictions and a greater level of hospitality roles placed onto the Shortage Occupation list, in order to stave off further irreparable damage to a sector that brings £66bn per year into the UK economy.”

On Monday, the Recruitment and Employment Confederation (REC) said the shortage of workers across all sectors could cost the UK economy £30 billion every year unless the problem is tackled.

And in March, the Office for National Statistics revealed that almost 100,000 EU nationals had left accommodation and food services in the two years to June 2021 — the highest of any industry.