Abstract

Neoliberal reforms have led to a profound transformation of the UK labour market and the higher education sector, resulting in precarisation of work, youth underemployment and employability-focused universities. Relying on a flexible young workforce, tourism and hospitality workplaces have been at the forefront of these changes. This article examines implications of these macro-level transformations for young workers and the role of hospitality workplaces in shaping understandings of work. Drawing on 44 interviews with university students on zero-hour contracts in UK hospitality, the article theorises student-workers’ socialisation to work. It shows how, as anticipatory work socialisation spaces, hospitality workplaces contribute to the shaping of neoliberal subjectivities through normalisation of certain, sometimes troubling, working practices.