The Inquiry undertook a range of research, including survey work, focus groups and interviews with employers and workers, and identified a range of fair work challenges. These include:

• Low pay, with hospitality offering the lowest median hourly pay (excluding overtime) of all sectors in Scotland in 2023.
• A growing use of varied and more insecure contract types, including agency work, self-employment and some use of ‘apps’ like Stint which offer shifts as short as two hours. The hospitality sector also accounted for around a third of people on Zero Hours Contracts in Scotland in 2022, and survey work undertaken during the Inquiry suggested that a proportion of workers are without written contracts.
• Both rates of accidents and bullying and harassment were significant concerns in hospitality and the requirement to travel home late at night creates a specific safety risk for hospitality workers, particularly those that are low paid.
• Many hospitality workers did not feel supported by their employer to access training. The Inquiry found examples of employers asking workers to undertake training in their own time and/or at their own expense, even for training directly related to their current role.
• Managers’ experiences of fair work were often viewed as poor, with a perception of long hours and relatively low pay, especially when considered in relation to hours worked.
• In 2023, collective bargaining coverage in the Scottish accommodation and food sector was the lowest of any sector in the economy.
• The Inquiry also heard evidence that a lack of formal voice structures often impacts access to basic employment rights in hospitality, with workers expressing a need to self-advocate to access basic rights like breaks, sick pay or holiday pay. This has a particularly negative impact on younger workers and migrant workers who lacked the skills and experience to question their employer’s practice and to ensure that they received all of their rights and entitlements at work.

More positively, the Inquiry recognised some core strengths in the industry that it is important to acknowledge and build upon:

• Hospitality contributes to the quality of local community life across Scotland.
• The proportion of employees earning below the Real Living Wage has dropped in the Scottish accommodation and food sector from 60.0% in 2019 to 45.8% in 2023. New tips legislation will also make it unlawful for businesses to hold back tips or service charges from their employees giving a clear standard to all businesses.
• The sector is relatively diverse and employs larger shares of equality groups compared with the Scottish economy overall, with higher than average proportions of young workers, ethnic minority workers and migrant workers in 2022.
• Hospitality employers often play a vital role in terms of social inclusion by providing entry level roles for highly marginalised groups that can find it difficult to access employment opportunities.
• Work in the sector is varied, and both employers and workers often identified that personal relationships with co-workers and customers, and variation in the working day, made work enjoyable and fulfilling.