When we went on a holiday in Scotland, twenty years ago, we stayed in several different hotels and ate in many restaurants. The only Scottish people we talked to were fellow guests. The staff came from all over the world, including some from the US.
Covid and Brexit have caused a huge upheaval in the labour market around the world. No doubt it will take a few years to settle down.
The UK did not develop a service culture in the same way as other countries. It does not have the restaurant culture of France, nor the family restaurants of Italy, The US ‘working my way through college’ tradition did not really exist when university tuition fees were paid by the state which was the case until recently. Moreover there is a reluctance because of the class culture in the UK. For the British to show any sort of deference to a fussy customer or client is a stretch especially if that customer is also British. The customer is certainly not King in the UK. There is no ‘smile until it hurts’ and the work culture is not hire/fire.
A great deal of effort goes into customer service training in the UK, but people don’t really get it. It is often quite hilariously bad and the management itself can be very like Basil Fawlty where customers are treat as an annoying intrusion into the smooth running of the proprietors establishment.
So if you want front of house staff, you hire the French or Italians or Spanish. Indeed the British simply do not want to do those jobs so you get few applicants.
The ‘settled status’ arrangement with the EU will ease things for those already established in the UK. But for youngsters coming from the EU for the first time, there are now a lot of hurdles to negotiate, so too for employers. It is a desperate time to be in the hospitality business and this is another big problem.
At that point in time, I don’t think they were yet aware of who was going to be able to stay and who wasn’t. Or not informed.
True, there was much confusion, mainly caused by our feckless government ministers. I did have a couple of friends who went to the length of applying for British Citizenship just to be on the safe side.