Youth and hospitality work: Skills, subjectivity and affective labour

Abstract

Hospitality is popularly regarded as unskilled work and the industry relies on a young labour force. This paper examines the role of youth in the way that the ‘unskilled’ status of hospitality labour is defined and contested by workers. Drawing on qualitative data collected with hospitality workers, the paper creates new connections between theories of affective labour, the politics of skills, and conceptions of youth in relation to work. The paper shows that the capacity to be ‘fun’ and produce affects of enjoyment in hospitality venues is essentialised as an attribute of youth, who are regarded as essentially unskilled. Youth is enacted in the social relations of affective labour, including the requirement to produce affects of enjoyment. The paper shows how theories of affective labour can be developed to consider the materialities of low-wage service employment and demonstrates the significance of youthful subjectivities to social relations of hospitality work.