The Compensation Conundrum: Does the Hospitality Industry Shortchange its Employees – and Itself?

Excerpt] Compared to other industries, the service and hospitality industries employ a greater proportion of low-skill and part-time employees. Those workers generally earn less pay than do skilled or full-time workers. Thus, the hospitality industry's supposed low pay may actually reflect the low-skill nature of much of the work and perhaps mask pockets of highly paid positions. For this reason, it would be informative to compare pay levels of jobs according to the jobs' knowledge, skills, and abilities (KSAs). If the hospitality industry pays less for given levels of KSAs than do other industries, then the hospitality industry justly could be labeled as lowpaying. On the other hand, if the hospitality industry pays an amount similar to that of other industries for particular KSAs, one could argue that the perception of the industry's offering relatively low pay is inaccurate.