Nashville currently has more than 5,000 hotel rooms under construction with 3,500 more approved and on their way. This, along with all of the new restaurants coming to the area, has shown that the hospitality industry has been booming.
With more jobs, there has been a need for more workers, and some businesses have had trouble filling all of their positions.
"There seems to be more open positions then there are people to fill them, that's what happens when an industry grows quickly," Paul Brennen, culinary arts program director at Nashville State Community College, said, adding that the jobs have been hard to fill partly due to the cost of living in the city. "It's expensive to live in Nashville. The cost of living is something we all deal with, not just the hospitality and culinary field, all industries are dealing with it, so what a lot of cooks will do is they'll work two and three jobs."
To encourage more workers to take jobs in hospitality and culinary fields, many businesses have started telling potential employees about what growth they could experience, starting in a front desk position or in a cook line, and possibly growing with the business and making their way to a sales manager or a head chef.
The Nashville Convention and Visitors Corp. has even launched a hospitality works page on their website to help businesses with the advertising of needed positions, helping potential employees see what's available.
It's estimated that by 2019, more than 2,000 jobs will need to be filled in the hotel industry alone in Nashville, and that number will grow when you add in new restaurants in the culinary industry.
