Lights on, nobody applying: skills shortage bites as Australia reopens

SYDNEY, Oct 27 (BUS) Two years into a halting COVID-19 lockdown, Australia is ready to party, but places from restaurants to sports stadiums face a tough summer after massive exodus of holiday workers and foreign students.

Strict border closures have left a huge gap in the market for temporary workers, with hospitality-focused companies like AlSeasons in Sydney forced to turn down some jobs even as the economy opens up.

“Before closing, you can place an ad and get hundreds of applicants,” said Rhonda Everingham, hiring manager at Hospitality Workers Recruitment Company.

“Now you’re lucky if you get five and you might have three fits, and by the time you get those jobs, they have another job.”

Labor shortages are hit hardest in companies facing the public sector, those businesses already hardest hit by months of ongoing lockdowns in Sydney’s two largest cities, which ended many COVID-19 restrictions on October 11, and Melbourne, which moved late last week, reports Reuters.

Government statistics show that the number of non-resident workers in the country – often travelers on work visas – fell by two-thirds in the June quarter of 2021 from the beginning of 2020.

Peter Hurley, an education policy researcher at Victoria University, said the drop in international students has been dramatic. There are now about 300,000 international students living in Australia fewer than there were at the start of the pandemic, a drop by more than half.

That has left businesses in Sydney, home to a quarter of Australia’s 2.2 million informal workforce, struggling to find staff as the city emerges from four months of lockdown.

In the event’s first major test of staff, an eight-day stadium football match was given to find 730 cooks, service, cleaning and security staff for the 22,500 spectators allowed on October 25.

The company representative said the stadium’s operator, VenuesLive, got hold of the headcount because there were no other big events at the same time, noting that “hospitality companies everywhere are facing staff challenges.”

job delayed

The New South Wales state government, of which Sydney is the capital, is planning to resume receiving modest numbers of international students and has said it wants to migrate to Australia to double from pre-COVID levels to 400,000 people a year to fill the labor shortage.

For now, the federal government, which enjoyed popular support for a tough border closure early in the pandemic, is sticking to a phased reopening. It says only Australian citizens, residents and their family members can enter the country at present.

Even when foreigners return, many employers face delays in hiring them because they require employees with local experience and proficiency in the English language, AlS Seasons’ Everingham said.

Therefore, employers add incentives.

Australian Venue Co, which owns 160 pubs and clubs across the country, said it was offering vouchers worth A$1,000 ($745) for new kitchen and floor staff who stay longer than three months due to difficulty finding staff.

Managing Director Jeff Alcock said MSS Security, which guards universities, businesses and government buildings around Sydney, will spend A$1 million annually to fund needed training for the industry and help fill job openings that have doubled to 400 since early 2020.

Pompey’s, a popular Italian restaurant in Bondi Beach, is trading through the shutdown offering fast food and delivery, said owner George Pompei, but is now closing for weekday lunches and every Monday for the first time in 20 years because half of its employees have left the country.

Despite the announcement of a cash “login bonus” of A$2,000 to the wait staff and the pub, no one showed up for an interview.

“Before, you couldn’t wait to hear the phone ring and people wanted to book and wait in line at the front. Now you almost don’t,” Pompey said. “This is the new COVID-normal.”