Employment Outcomes for Australian Tourism and Hospitality VET Graduates During the COVID-19 Pandemic

ABSTRACT

The COVID-19 pandemic disrupted employment, education, and the vocational education and training (VET) sector across the worldwide economy. This study examines the impact of the pandemic on VET enrollment figures and employment outcomes for graduates in the travel and tourism industry in Australia using data from the Student Outcome Surveys conducted from 2018 to 2021. We seek to determine if the pandemic had a negative impact on enrollment and post-VET employment outcomes in the tourism and hospitality sector. The findings suggest that employment outcomes after training, tourism and hospitality graduates experienced a transitory decline in job prospects particularly during 2020 but recovered substantially during 2021. In the case of hospitality graduates, the probability of employment in 2021 exceeded pre-pandemic levels. We conclude that the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic on VET enrollments and employment outcomes in the tourism and hospitality sector have been less devastating than public perception would suggest.

KEYWORDS:

• Vocational education and training
• hospitality and tourism
• employment outcomes
• COVID-19

Disclosure Statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Author Contributions

PF concept, methods and data analysis, JR introduction and conclusion, GP tourism context, CMH discussion.

Data Availability Statement

The data that support the findings of this study are available from the National Centre for Vocational Education Research (NCVER), Adelaide, Australia. Restrictions apply to the availability of these data, which were used under license for this study. Data are available from the authors with the permission of NCVER.

Additional information

Funding

This study did not receive any funding.