Labor Market Issues - Essay Example

Labour Market Issues Essay Student Name: Student Number: Course Code: Instructor: 22nd February, 2013 Tourism is an array of activities that include, but are not limited to, travelling and acquiring temporary boarding in places not considered as the regular areas of residence for a person. The purposes of touring an area may vary from leisure to work, and for business. The tourism, hospitality or leisure industries are a major source of revenue for most countries world over. As such, these countries strive to create an environment that is conducive for the industry in order to maximize on revenue generated from it. As an industry, tourism encourages the growth of auxiliary services that are consumed alongside it. For instance, in an area laden with parks that keep wild animals, or zoos, and areas with beautiful scenery, services such as accommodation are common place. Effectively, tourist hotels thrive around these places which are likely to be used by tourists who may stay for a while. Other industries that may thrive in these areas include restaurants, sporting clubs that hold activities like kayaking and other recreational facilities like spas and gyms. The auxiliary services provided in the tourism industry may form an industry altogether. However, for the successful running of all these activities, a considerable amount of labour force has to be hired. In such cases, both skilled and unskilled labour is required. From management level to the lowest cadre employees hired for the jobs in these industries, various factors are taken into consideration. Culture and expertise may come to play, which may or may not be applied across the industry. For instance, while it may seem prudent to employ a multilingual tour guide, a low cadre hotel employee may not necessarily need to be fluent in more than one language. On the other hand, the management level employees may not necessarily be multilingual, though literacy in various languages may appeal to their prospective employers. The different qualifications attached to different positions indicate that the labour force in the tourism industry is as diverse as can be, as decided by different factors such as cultural diversity and social composition of the people at the work place. France is among the countries that receive most tourists per annum worldwide. Apart from its unique language – French – the country is well endowed with famous sites and sceneries that come second to none. As a country whose national language is considered exotic, it is only right for tour guides employed in the tourism industry to be not only competent in handling diverse cultures, but also multi-lingual so as to be able to handle the tourists from various parts of the world. Frederique and Catherine (2010) allude to this fact when they note the attempts by Federation des Francophone de Terre-Neuve et du Labrador (FFTNL) and the Reseau de Developpement Economique et Employabilite (RDEE TNL) in helping the French tourism stakeholders to employ various competent labourers in Europe. Both the organizations were engaged in helping out major players in the tourism industry to source for employees who are bilingual and can take up jobs at various capacities. The employees were an addition to an already sufficient labour force in the French tourism industry. However, they would serve as an extra team with a more diverse competence in various cultures suitable in handling the tourists from various countries. Conventional tourism is mainly staked on features such as historic sites, leisure parks, wildlife sanctuaries and the visiting of other picturesque places. In France, however, exotic cuisine and wine tourism, which are deeply revered cultures, also attract a huge number of tourists. French wine is a world renowned product as it rates as among the best. In France, it is rare to be served a full-course meal without the inclusion of wine as a final part of the whole meal. Therefore, the tourism industry in France prides in having myriad avenues through which it gains revenue for the country. The same cannot be said about many countries. Therefore, the tourism industry in France requires a labour force that is very diverse and trained to meet the various needs under each category of products. In essence, the labour market in the French tourism industry utilizes both natives and foreign expatriates. As a country that receives the most tourists annually, the service industry in France deals with a high number of employees particularly in the tourism industry than most of the other big industries. In fact, at approximately 70%, the service industry is the largest income earner for France. More often than not, tourism has influenced key sectors like the transport industry in France. For instance, Anthony (2000) opines that as early as 1991, the tourism industry accounted for 8% of France’s GDP. In all, the labour force that was required to run the industry successfully numbered nearly a million employees in various areas, mainstream and ancillary. With advances in time and improvement of infrastructure, the country has seen an exponential rise in the number of tourists. In light of this, the service industry has had to keep up with the changes. Effectively, more labour force needed for such changes came as an urgent change. However, the native French nationals were not enough to fill the positions available in the industry. This challenge affected not only the self-employed, but it also faced the government as the more the tourists arrived, the more employees were needed to handle them. The government of France, according to Nigar and Marcello (2005), had to take measures to make sure that dwindling revenues from the tourism industry does not continue to affect the GDP. The rise in need for more labour force, however, had to be done in harmony with the government’s need for more employee-friendly terms of employment. For instance, any organization in need of more than a stipulated number of employees would have to allow them to register unions to safe-guard their interests, a move which was likely to increase costs of employing more employees in any sector. The tourism industry has not suffered any major setback since most of the players in that industry are government organizations. In most cases where private companies run ancillary services that complement the tourism sector, the rules apply. In Europe, French labour laws are among the most stringent. As a way of taking care of the run-away effects of the financial crisis that affected the rates of employment, the government put up policies to ensure a steady rise in employment. For instance, instead of having fewer employees who work long hours, more employees working shifts would suffice more as a way of accommodating a bigger labour force. The tourism industry was hit by these changes. However, the most hit were the part-time employees like the translators and tour guides. On the other hand, the employees who had already been employed had little to worry about, though their terms of employment encouraged a steeper remittance to labour unions. Employees like resort managers, accountants and other positions which can only be held under long-term contracts seem to be attracting heavier premiums in terms of health insurance costs. When considering smaller companies that operate in the tourism sector in France, the number of employees comes to play only when it goes beyond the policy-stipulated figures. In the British Columbia province of Canada, tourism is regarded highly, just as it is in France. As a province that receives a considerable percentage of Canada’s total population of tourists, it has undergone tumultuous times in its labour market just as much as France has. For instance, in the early 2000’s, issues in the labour market threatened the day-to-day operations in the tourism industry of that area. As a measure to curb any unfortunate occurrence, the BC Human Resource Development Task Force (2003) was formulated to come up with ways through which the issues could be resolved. The economic down-turn of 2007 – 2009, which succeeded the demand for labourers in the tourism industry, did not help matters. However, as a reactive measure to this, the task force worked hand-in-hand with tourism industry players in attaining trends and other important data that was important in posting stochastic information. Tourism contributes to a high percentage of Seychelles’ GDP. The labour force in Seychelles is mainly drawn from foreign expatriates, a factor which makes its labour issues different in comparison to the case in France. While the little or lack thereof skilled labourers in Seychelles is a product of effects of a weak education system, the same can’t be said about France. The IMF (2012), places Seychelles’ country-wide unemployment rates at 26%. It is prudent, however to point out that France’s use of foreign expatriates is mainly due to a need to provide a wider base of culturally competent employees. This suffices better due to the high number of foreign tourists who are from diverse backgrounds. This does not in any way imply that the tourists who visit Seychelles are not from diverse background. That could be far from the truth. A sample of the tourists who visit each of these countries shows that France could be getting a more heterogeneous population of tourists as opposed to the one that visits Seychelles. Australia seems to suffer from a different problem altogether. Deloitte Access Economics (2011) found out that while the surge in number of required labourers is contributed to by an exponentially increasing number of tourists, the labour force in Australia’s tourism industry mainly displays the following characteristics; there seems to be lots of difficulties in recruiting employees, the available labour force is more of low-skill than the right number of skilled labourers and finally, the ability to keep already-employed labourers at work is low due to several factors. This inability to keep employees within their contract period may be as a result of better employment terms in other industries. This pattern does not show at all in the French tourism sector though the recently introduced employment policies introduced by the government may lead to a similar situation. The requirement to have more unionized employees may force more employers in the tourism sector to lay off employees in a bid to meet the stipulated standards. The best means to dealing with the labour market issues would be to keep tracking the trends through collaborations with the several stakeholders in the tourism industry. This is a sure way of keeping tabs on what is likely to affect it in a given period. The Green Tourism Association (2002) advocate for a continuous monitoring of trends as the industry is deemed too dynamic to be viewed without a prudent and pragmatic approach. Whereas the labour markets in different countries are affected or hit by similar issues, it is important to note that measures to address the issues can only be employed differently. For instance, the French labour market in the tourism industry suffered a high vacancy rate after an upsurge in the number of tourists arriving into the country. On the other hand, the Seychelles labour market is affected by a high vacancy rate due to unavailable labour force with the right qualifications. The diversity in labour market in the two countries is also due to similar issues, but rooted in different reasons. While it is good to note that France’s diverse labour force is actually augmented from foreign countries in the wider European Union, Seychelles’ labour force is mostly composed of expatriates from foreign countries as skilled labour is hard to come by within. Jensen (2001) posits that the deficiency experienced in any tourism labour market should be reduced, and finally gotten rid of through training of a bigger segment of the labour force. Training in diverse cultures could also come in handy to ensure that the multiple cultures are handled with utmost professionalism. The measures introduced by the French government in curbing high rates of unemployment pose a serious threat to the tourism industry as most of the requirements seem too steep for the small enterprises that provide ancillary services to the tourism industry. As a challenge, most of the SME’s opt to keep a certain minimum number of employees so as to avoid some of the policies that could expose them to higher tax remittances to the state. Bibliography Anthony, E., 2000, Tourism and Development in European Countries, Business and Economics, Issues 18 – 38, p 51. BC Tourism Human Resource Development Task Force, 2003, British Columbia’s Tourism and Hospitality Industry is in an Enviable Position, BC Tourism Human Resource Development Task Force Action Plan, BC Tourism Labour Market Strategy, pp. 1 – 20, retrieved on 28th February, 2013 at http://www.iecbc.ca/sites/default/files/go2-TLMS-Communications.pdf Carnegy, H., 2013, France Battles with Labour Market Reforms, The Financial Times LTD, Retrieved on 27th February, 2013 at http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/05b54c84-5a63-11e2-bc93-00144feab49a.html#axzz2MHmsgYEx Deloitte Access Economics, 2011, Australian Tourism Labour Force Report: Labour Force Report (Part 1), National Long-Term Tourism Strategy, Australian Tourism Labour Force. Frederique, W. & Catherine W., 2010, Labour Force Available in France and Belgium for the Tourism Industry, Tourism Times, Vol. 18 No. 1, p 10. Green Tourism Association, 2002, Urban Green Tourism: Industrial and Labour Market Opportunities in the Toronto Region, Toronto Urban Development Services. International Monetary Fund, The IMF’s Advice on Market Labour Issues, IMF Factsheet, Retrieved on 1st March, 2013 at www.imf.org/external/np/exr/facts/labor.htm Jensen, J. F., 2001, Tourism and Employment: Improving Training in Order to Upgrade Skills in the Tourism Industry, Final Report of the Working Group B, pp. 3 – 7. Nigar, N. & Marcello, E., (June 2005), Structural Labour Markets in France, IZA Discussion Papers, No. 1621, pp. 18 – 36. Van Westering, J. E. N., 2003, The Organization of Wine Tourism in France: The Involvement of the French Public Sector, Journal of travel and Tourism Marketing (The Haworth Hospitality Press) Vol. 14 No. 3 / 4, 2002, pp. 35 – 47. Read More