Immigrant Employees in Hotels

In 2002, some 22,000 people worked in NSW hotels, most of them in the large 4 and 5-star city hotels owned by global hospitality chains. Hotel workers are part of the larger accommodation industry workforce, an expanding industry that reflects Sydney s development as a global city. Immigrant workers from non-English speaking countries (NESCs) have historically had a strong foothold in the accommodation industry, and in recent years have increased their presence in it, making up roughly one fifth of the workforce in 2001. Despite the longstanding importance of immigrant workers to the industry, and vice versa, clear patterns exist between the jobs they are concentrated in and those jobs performed by Australian born people and English speaking origin immigrants. The concentration of immigrants in ‘back-of-house’ jobs, and their relative absence from management positions which instead tend to be occupied by Anglo-Australian males, is such an enduring feature of the hotel industry that it seems ‘normal’—not only to those working in it but to other academic researchers, for whom immigrant women s work (in particular) has tended to be invisible. My research in two large Sydney hotels in 2002 problematises these patterns, and examines how and why they come about. Although gender-based patterning is also significant in the industry, this paper focuses on findings of my research on immigrant experiences and the operation of language in hotel workplaces.