The psychosocial impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on hospitality industry workers

Abstract

The COVID-19 pandemic has hit hospitality industry employees hard; this study emphasises the psychosocial impacts that the COVID-19 pandemic has left on these workers. During the spread of COVID-19, the Maltese Government implemented several containment measures, such as halting foreign travelling, which severely impacted the hospitality industry. The scope of this qualitative research is to obtain a deeper understanding of the psychosocial impact that the COVID-19 pandemic had on hospitality industry workers from the employees’ perspective. One-to-one interviews were utilised to collect data from the perspective of hospitality industry workers. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with eight hospitality industry workers that work both in the front and back-of-house, including waiters and kitchen staff. All participants had been working in the hospitality industry for more than four years. A thematic analysis approach was adopted to analyse the data collected (Braun & Clarke, 2006). The findings of this study also showed that the industry was not prepared for an emergency, therefore one way or another, all hospitality industry employees were psychologically affected by the COVID-19 pandemic as well as the restrictions that the authorities imposed on the industry. The issues posed by this pandemic that hospitality industry employees were mainly concerned about included income loss, job insecurity resulting in layoffs and the environment itself. Consequently, I anticipate that the findings of this study will be a useful reference to any hospitality industry employer in case of any unanticipated events.