•Workforce research is neglected in the top 8 T&H journals, rated by Impact Factor.•The term ‘workforce’ unifies the multiple levels at which research is conducted.•T&H workforce research is disjointed in topics, analysis, theory and method.•Tourism vs. hospitality research gives different treatment to workforce issues.•A multi-level model presents a contextual framework for future workforce research. This paper offers a critical review, purview and future view of ‘workforce’ research. We argue that the tourism (and hospitality) workforce research domain, beyond being neglected relative to its importance, suffers from piecemeal approaches at topic, analytical, theoretical and methods levels. We adopt a three-tiered macro, meso and micro level framework into which we map the five pervasive themes from our systematic review across a 10year period (2005–2014). A critique of the literature, following a ‘representations’ narrative, culminates in the development of a tourism workforce taxonomy, which we propose should provide the starting point for a pathway to guide the advancement of a more holistic approach to tourism workforce knowledge development.