Hospitality was one of, if not the hardest hit throughout the peak of the pandemic with lockdowns, capacity restrictions and changes in consumer behaviour now meaning employment opportunities have been slow to fill and causing huge problems.
Burkes Hotel Motel Owner Andrew Curran said the current situation is as bad as he has ever seen it.
“We have limited experienced staff and it’s like many have left the industry with the impact of the covid restrictions and found work elsewhere in other industries,” Mr Curran said.
“There is a general reluctance to work nights and over the weekend periods with kitchen staff short in supply because of issues with Visa’s etc. They are the backbone of the industry realistically.
“It is a combination of all of the above that will lead to restrictive limitations being put on many businesses as they simply cannot cater to the demand.
“General price increases on everything across the board is also not helping. As an example, cooking oil is now twice the price it was a year ago and we change it twice a week to keep the quality there.
“This leads to the customer paying more for the end product.
“This will be the new “norm” until the flow of staff settles back to previous levels, but this may take years.”
Mulwala Water Ski Club CEO Peter Duncan agreed and said even as one of the towns biggest employers, the ski club is struggling to recruit or maintain staff as people have decided it’s easier not to work.
“We could certainly do with more staff. We are coping at present but will have to make decisions on capacity limits if we don’t pick up more staff for the busy Christmas season,” Mr Duncan said.
“Some staff did not return after our shut down periods during covid, but staff shortages has more to do with not being able to replace staff who leave through natural attrition.
“If we are still short of staff during our busy times such as Melbourne Cup week, Christmas etc, we will be limiting the numbers into the club that we can safely cater for.
“My belief is that the overseas students and backpackers have not returned to Australia and these people usually fill the hospitality needs in the cities. Therefore the students that usually come home to work for the clubs can now find jobs in the city and don’t need to travel home to work.
“Having said that, there is definitely not the amount of people walking in looking for work as there was prior to covid.
“This may have something to do with government assistance or people’s reluctance to be amongst crowds.
“To rectify this we need to get students, backpackers and overseas workers back into Australia. “Promote more confidence in people regarding covid. I’m not sure what government assistance is out there at the moment but encourage people to work and reduce handouts.”
In the Manufacturing industry, one of Yarrawonga Mulwala’s biggest manufacturing employers YMH (Yarrawonga Manufactured Housing) have struggled with staff as well as product due to several occurrences around the world.
“Being in the building industry we never had to put off staff during and managed our way through but the fact is we have that much work on at the moment but not the workforce to get through it,” Director Nathan Tresize said.
“The building industry has absolutely boomed from the governments builders grant but as a sector, we were already travelling well and didn’t need the extra work.
“Many contracts were signed by homeowners to get the grant but that has now impacted on the cost of supplies also. Costs have skyrocketed and continue to increase.
“We had hoped with the borders opening that more unskilled labour would be available but it has been a slow process and people that were potentially looking at a career in the trades have been able to find work in less physically strenuous fields for the same wage.
“Currently there is more pressure on the building and manufacturing industry than the capabilities we have.
“Covid is going to impact us for some time yet.”
Research (Training for your future: filling the jobs in regional NSW) conducted by the Regional Australia Institute (RAI), in partnership with VERTO identified 1,096 job vacancies across regional NSW, with 3.5 vacancies per business surveyed.
VERTO CEO, Ron Maxwell said the research revealed that businesses are looking for more general skills and qualifications such as computer literacy, driver’s licence, first-aid, basic literacy and numeracy, white cards and responsible service of gambling and alcohol.
“The majority of skills and qualifications sought by surveyed businesses are those that could be undertaken through vocational education and training institutions (VET) as opposed to universities,” he said.
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