Key Points
- Figures released this week show just how hard it has been for some businesses to find workers.
- Almost half of all accommodation and food services businesses in Australia had positions available in November.
- Vacancies in accommodation and food services more than doubled, while retail trade vacancies were up more than 140 per cent.
Summer is a peak season for Brewstone Pizzeria and Cafe in Port Sorrell on Tasmania's northwest coast.
The business usually makes its best profits over the holiday period, which help keep it afloat throughout quieter times.
But staff shortages have meant Vicki Shakoff and her son, who co-own Brewstone, have been forced to keep their eatery's doors shut on about four occasions over recent months.
New figures released by the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) this week show just how hard it has been for business owners like Ms Shakoff to find workers.
Almost half of all accommodation and food services businesses in Australia had positions available in November 2022, compared with just 14.5 per cent in February 2020.
What the statistics show
Andrew Barker, senior economist at the Committee for Economic Development of Australia (CEDA) said the results were "very striking".
He said vacancies in accommodation and food services, and in arts and recreation were up by more than 200 per cent, while retail trade vacancies were up by more than 140 per cent.
"That's a real change compared to what we were looking at before the pandemic," Mr Barker told SBS News.
The latest ABS statistics reveal the percentage of businesses looking for workers in certain industries. Source: SBS News
"Looking at the economy as a whole, job vacancies are up 95 per cent, versus the base in February 2020 before the pandemic, so we're looking at a much tighter labour market overall," Mr Barker said.
This is reflected in the current unemployment rate of around 3.5 per cent, which is lower than the figure prior to the pandemic when it was over 5 per cent.
Almost 50 per cent of businesses in the accommodation and food services sector were looking for workers in November, up from 14.5 per cent in February 2020, a rise of 212 per cent. Source: SBS News
Consumers making up for lost time
Mr Barker said the results in the accommodation and food services sector could reflect a rebound in demand.
"People saved money during the pandemic when they were constrained in what they could do, and are now making up for that," he said.
"You only needed to look at how busy restaurants and cafés were at the end of last year to see that people are spending more on going to restaurants and so forth."
But he said job losses in 2020 when the pandemic first hit were also concentrated in those industries.
"So employment in accommodation and food services fell by almost 15 per cent during the first six months of the pandemic.
Some hospitality workers may have left the industry and found other jobs during the pandemic, making it harder to fill vacancies now. Source: AAP
Mr Barker said the halt in immigration during the pandemic was also an important factor.
"Australia's immigration system has a very strong skills focus but what the pandemic really revealed was the extent to which sectors like accommodation, food services and the tourism sector are reliant on labour from international students and working holidaymakers," he said.
Long days and full working weeks
Ms Shakoff has been working in Tasmania's hospitality industry for the past seven years and said finding and retaining staff is more challenging now than she's ever experienced.
"There are no words to even explain it, shortages are just horrendous for everybody at the moment," she told SBS News.
Ms Shakoff and her son have owned Brewstone Pizzeria and Cafe for about three years and she's had a sign in the window advertising positions available since November last year.
"Getting senior experienced staff is the hardest, I've been looking for a chef here basically ever since we opened," she said.
Ms Shakoff said they had increased wages as much as they could for a business operating on such small profit margins, offered apprenticeships, and provided greater flexibility for their workers.
While Vicki Shakoff says her long-term staff are a huge help when they can be, she and her son often have to work longer shifts to fill gaps in the roster at their cafe. Source: Supplied
Ms Shakoff said many others who had been in the industry had found different work when the COVID-19 pandemic interrupted the hospitality industry and many had not come back to it.
To make up for their lack of staff, she and her son often end up working seven days a week, from 7 am when the café opens to 8 pm when it closes.
The bed and breakfast Ms Shakoff operates with her husband is also struggling to find workers.
"To get cleaners, it's so hard," she said, admitting, she often has to carry out the cleaning which she would otherwise outsource.
What does the future hold for these industries?
Mr Barker said there were great opportunities at the moment for people with skills in hospitality for example, but the labour market would not stay like this forever.
"We already saw for the economy as a whole, that job vacancies did drop a little bit between August and November last year," he said.
He said the easing of labour market pressures was expected to continue this year.
As the economy slows with the effects of higher interest rates and a weakening global economy, Mr Barker expects the job market won't be as tight, although there will still be opportunities.
He said businesses need to take action to fill some of the shortages they were facing, and some had widened their search to include people who may not be their traditional sources of workers.
"So there are opportunities for people with much less work experience," he said. "Businesses need to perhaps give more training to those people and look to more diverse sources of workers," he said.
Mr Barker pointed to a recent CEDA report that found and said businesses should think about how they could create a better environment for men or women, depending on the sector.
"And of course, making sure conditions at work are conducive to maintaining staff," he said.
