Wasted skills: The hospitality industry and its young chefs

Rapid changes in industry and the world of work require vocational education training (VET) providers to consider their role in industry skills shortages and how they respond to pressure from government and industry groups to address the need for effective training. This research seeks to throw light on how large training organisations, such as TAFE and industry have responded to government reports on critical skills shortages within the industry(ACTU 2004, July; McKenzie 2004, July). It will seek to probe commercial cookery training(NCVER 2001, June) and the hospitality industry, to ask the question as to what can be done to stem the high turnover of young chefs. The research will also explore the composition and effectiveness of both formal and informal learning of the trainee combined with the industry and training organisation’s capacity to produce long term employment prospects for the trainee to meet the industry’s need to retain skilled, productive employees. What is emerging, from the initial research findings are concerns such as the changin