To Örebro University

The restaurant industry faces challenges with poor working conditions and low job status, making it difficult to recruit and retain staff. With this premise, this study examines how the concept of restaurant work is constructed within the restaurant industry and broader societal discourses by applying two Foucauldian analytical tools: the problem and the truth. The article's contextual starting point is the reduced VAT rate for restaurant and catering services in Sweden, which is implemented to combat unemployment and increase the flow of labour into the industry. The analysis reveals three key representations: the social entrepreneur, the entrepreneurial victimhood, and the frontline guardian of the moral economy. These representations highlight the restaurant industry's position in addressing unemployment and integration, while also emphasising the economic hardships faced by restaurant entrepreneurs. The study concludes that an entrenched link between low-status jobs and the restaurant industry is perpetuated by these representations, suggesting that investments in improved working conditions are considered to put the economic foundation of the restaurant industry at risk.

The need for competent hospitality workers is significant for the sustainable development of the restaurant industry. However, with the recurring challenges of recruiting and retaining a competent workforce, there is a need to understand how employers portray and communicate hospitality work in the recruitment process. Therefore, this study examines how employers construct the image of the hospitality worker, by analyzing what job advertisements signal and communicate to the applicants. Through thematic analysis of 100 job advertisements in Sweden, we found that the ideal hospitality worker is an individualized team player with occupational passion. This means that social capacities and commitment to hospitality and gastronomy, factors that are difficult to measure, are of relevance to gaining employment. Additionally, by asking for social capacities, the distance between work and leisure is diminished and the employee is constructed as a commodity for the purpose of improving service. In contrast to the common image that hospitality work is work that anyone could do, we conclude that the qualifications for becoming a hospitality worker in the restaurant industry are fairly complex.

Sexual harassment against female migrant domestic workers is a public health problem, which remains hidden and largely underreported. The current paper presents the results of a qualitative research study on sexually victimized migrant domestic workers in four European countries (Austria, Cyprus, Greece, and Sweden). The study aimed at exploring the profile and experiences of victimised individuals. Data were gathered via 66 semi-structured interviews with victimised female migrant domestic workers. Key findings of the current study indicate that the victims: (a) were usually undocumented and had low local language skills; (b) identified domestic work as the only way into the labour market; (c) suffered primarily psychological, economic, and social consequences; (d) had poor social support networks; (e) were poorly connected to governmental support services. This is the first study to explore this hidden problem via direct contact with victims. Addressing barriers of migrants’ social integration seems important. Better regulation and monitoring of this low-skilled occupation could minimise risks for vulnerable employees.

This paper contributes to research on the growing expectation of hospitality businesses to implement sustainability strategies. By using the theoretical framework of professional knowledge cultures, as discussed by Nerland [Nerland, M. (2012). Professions as knowledge cultures. In Professional learning in the knowledge society (pp. 27–48). Brill/Sense], together with concepts of leadership and management, the study presents a novel approach. The aim is to explore the knowledge culture and the processes of learning and leadership formation in the restaurant industry to understand how these impact sustainable decision-making in restaurants. Through a narrative method, a typical industry career is illuminated, which mirrors the route to becoming a leader while adopting sustainability strategies. One podcast interview was used as research material to introduce a new data source derived from social media. The sampling considers the relevance of the narrators’ knowledge and experience of the chef's profession and is therefore representative of a naturally occurring data. The analysis, based on knowledge culture, leadership practices, and sustainability, shows that the size of the restaurant matters for financial and socially sustainable decision-making. This is explained by the production flow in large organizations, which depends on calculated and effective work methods. Environmental sustainability strategies appear as a personal concern and are thereafter transformed into the knowledge culture, identified as a normative leadership.

A significant part of the labour market debate is devoted to issues concerning problematic youth. Expressions like “thelost generation” is coined to address the very core of the matter. It captures the difficulties for low-skilled young peopleto gain a sustainable work life in an education-oriented society. A strategy to increase employment opportunitiesspecifically suited for the latter group was introduced in Sweden on 1 January in 2012. The VAT for restaurant andcatering services was lowered from 25% to 12%. The aim is to support an increase in demand for restaurant and cateringservices and, through that, increase the number of employment opportunities for for the less educated labour marketgroups.In this study I have investigated how young people themselves describe the path from unemployment to an ambition towork in the restaurant industry. Empirical data were collected from two main sources. Firstly, material was gatheredthrough in-depth interviews with 17 young men and women who, a few years after the implementation of the new VATstrategy for restaurant services, participates in a vocational training program in restaurant work. Secondly, materialconsisting of government policy documents published between the years 1981 and 2011 was collected.I used a theoretical frame inspired by Michel Foucault. The analysis takes place at an intersection where personalambitions to improve problematic work lives meet political strategies that amount into an ambition to lead unqualifiedjob seekers into suitable employment opportunities.I have veiwed the relation between the two materials as a game oftruth. It is a game between, on one side, the political ability to govern society and anchor important truths about theeconomy and, on the other side, a group of people who have ability to create resistance, motivated by their own interestsand claims on the results the truth creates.How the essence of the political truth becomes relevant among the interviewees has been detected through theidentification of truth practices. These truth practices also become essential to how the path to the restaurant industrytakes form. Findings indicate that the process of occupational choice among the interviewees is predominately positive.The image of restaurant work as a representation of low-skilled work is characterised by possibilities to achieve successthat have not previously been available. It is against the backdrop of the interviewees' problematic relations to the labourmarket that the image is argued to become relevant. Perhaps the relevance is even of a particular importance in a timewhen labour market opportunities are considered to be fewer for disadvantaged groups, while the importance of actingresponsibly to create a sustainable work life is argued to be greater than ever.

Den första januari 2012 sänkte den då sittande alliansregeringen momssatsen för restaurang- och cateringtjänster från 25 % till 12 %. Det övergripande målet med den lägre momssatsen är att stimulera efterfrågan på okvalificerad arbetskraft genom att skapa förutsättningar för lägre priser och därmed ökad efterfrågan på restaurangföretagens tjänster.

Under tiden efter genomförandet av den sänkta momssatsen har diskussionen företrädesvis uppehållit sig vid frågan om rekryteringseffekten, något som kännetecknas av en oenighet om huruvida lagändringen är en framgång eller ett för samhällsekonomin kostsamt misslyckande. I denna avhandling utgår jag emellertid från en fråga som inte verkar ha behandlats i den förda debatten: hur blir lågutbildade ungdomar lockade av tanken på att bli restaurangarbetare? För att undersöka frågan studeras hur arbetslösa och lågutbildade ungdomar själva berättar om sin väg fram till serviceyrken som den rådande arbetsmarknadspolitiken ser som lämpliga destinationer för svagare arbetssökande. I avhandlingen skapas dessa berättelser i relation till utvecklingen av övergripande politiska visioner om arbetsmarknaden och den sänkta momssatsens specifika motiv. Således belyser undersökningen yrkesvalet genom att analysera skärningspunkten där människans egenmakt möter den politiska maktens strategier för att underlätta inträden till arbetsmarknaden. Vid denna skärningspunkt blir ord som till exempel frihet, arbete, möjligheter och ansvar vägledande för att studera hur restaurangarbetaren tar form i de lågutbildade ungdomarnas tankar om framtiden.