South Australia, Western Australia and Queensland are some of the states that have had zero COVID cases during the past 24 hours. These states have once again flourished and noticed a flood of inbound tourists despite border closures.
As a result of this, many local businesses are once again in demand – but one major issue holds them back – lack of staff. For some businesses, staff are locked out of the state, while for others, finding staff has always been a hurdle and the reopening of the state means that it will be an ongoing challenge.
According to Melissa Finlay, a restaurant owner in WA, her venue had been fully booked since June. Melissa’s restaurant is based in Kalbarri on WA’s Coral Coast, which is known for warm weather, beautiful beaches and offering a window into the outback, however despite the idyllic location, Ms Finlay says she cannot find any willing workers. “At the moment we are looking for a couple of chefs, a couple of cooks, kitchen hands, front of house, wait staff, cleaners, pretty much all of the above,” she said. “We have been looking for 12 weeks now… and we just haven’t had any applications.”
Unfortunately, for many business owners, a lack of workers means they cannot capitalise on the booming local tourism industry.The shortage of regional workers is a trend throughout Australia as bush communities are recovering faster from the COVID-19 induced downturn than metro centres.
According to Job search engine giant, Seek, demand for workers in regional areas is back to pre-pandemic levels in all states and territories except for Victoria in comparison to metro areas where job ads are down 34 percent since the start of the pandemic.
How can we help?
Our sister company AABD Recruitment has been working with employers in regional areas for the past decade. Many of our candidates have received full-time jobs with sponsorship – and many go on to obtain permanent residency.
Despite the ongoing pandemic, our team has been working tirelessly and have placed numerous candidates throughout the whole COVID period.
To find out more about our employment services, speak to one of our recruitment consultants now.
