Looking for work(ers): Albany hospitality industry sounds alarm as worker shortage reaches crisis point

A cafe without a barista or a restaurant without a chef simply does not work. But for dozens of hospitality venues around Albany, the pressure is setting in as they struggle to fill positions and the region experiences a major worker shortage. The local job market is flooded with jobs advertisements in the hospitality industry, and owners are scrambling to keep business running as usual without adequate staff. The Advertiser counted more than 30 eateries in Albany and Denmark looking for workers, including many on the hunt to fill multiple roles. The overwhelming consensus from these small business owners is that people do not want to work when they can get Federal income support payments. In July, the Federal Government announced it was extending its Coronavirus Supplement payment and JobKeeper scheme to December 31 and March 28 respectively. Alkaline Cafe owner Mel Homewood is looking desperately for another four staff members. “It is getting dire out here,” she said. “All the business owners in town are waiting for the change. “They need to make that change before things go back to the way they were. “Christmas is around the corner and we are hoping that they stop the payments before then, so that people have to come and actively find work.” She said despite the shortage, she wanted to keep the doors open as much as possible in the interests of tourism. “We are about to open seven days a week and we have got no staff,” she said. “But we are going to open anyway because when people come from the city, we want to give them that option. “If everybody in the town is shut, people aren’t going to come back next school holidays.” The owner of new York Street restaurant Majuba Bistro, Andrea Love, said waitstaff had left because they did not want to work nights and were so in demand they could pick and choose what they did. “We have had two ads on Seek since we have been able to operate again after COVID-19 ... one is still currently running,” she said. “In January, we advertised and we had hundreds of applicants, people walking in the door even, whereas now we have no one. “I don’t know where our industry is going to go. “We are coming up to the peak season. We can’t keep on our 18-hour days; it is absolutely exhausting “Something needs to be done now. It can’t be done in a month or two. We are all suffering today.” Her business was hit especially tough, having only opened for business in January, weeks before the pandemic hit Australia. They were not eligible for Government support, but they had persevered through the pandemic only to be hit with another major problem — no staff. “These (Government payment) cases need to be individually looked at and assessed,” she said. “I think regional needs to be considered in a different light to the metropolitan areas, as our experiences are totally different. “We are open and in incredible demand, however we are not able to operate at our full potential.” Trying to be innovative to survive, they have managed to find two international student chefs through contacts at a hospitality school in Perth. They have put extra time into training them up. The message is similar at Vancouver Street Cafe, where owner Trevor Whitelaw tried for months to fill the positions of cook and kitchen hand, but found “people are just not interested”. Kate’s Place, on Stirling Terrace, received 13 applications in response to a recent job advertisement. At the same time last year, when they put out the call for the same position, they were contacted by 114 people. Boston Brewing Co. in Denmark is also struggling to find experienced workers. General manager Glen Daniel said even in the busy holiday period, young workers were of little use in solving the shortage for licensed venues because they could not serve alcohol. He said they would usually employ backpackers and the shortage of foreign seasonal workers was a double blow. “Being such a seasonal venue with a 500-person capacity, we would normally add on another six to 10 staff members during this period,” Mr Daniel said. “We are probably at half of that and looking probably another six at the moment. The majority of our casuals have wanted to come back but there has certainly been a few where it is not necessary for them to work at the moment because of the payments. “It is going to be harder on them when (the payments) come to an end because those positions will be filled by people who are wanting to work.” Albany Chamber of Commerce and Industry chief executive Benita Cattalini said she was aware of the job gap struggles faced by local businesses. “While JobSeeker/JobKeeper may be part of the reason some people are not returning to hospitality, it is important to recognise that this issue existed before COVID-19,” she said. “Since then, some people have taken up retraining, sought out ‘work-from-home’ opportunities or have looked for employment in other industry areas. “We have also heard from some businesses that staff have stated they are too scared to return to work, and some where staff say they will return to work when business can offer them more money than they can get staying at home.” Ms Cattalini said the ACCI was trying to find an interim solution. “We are raising this issue publicly and promoting the need for all for the employment service providers in our city to work with us to fill these jobs. “We are working with them to put candidates forward on our Working Together webpage to connect businesses to possible new staff.” City of Albany Mayor Dennis Wellington said the shortage would be exposed when the city was full of tourists. “While the situation is good that people are getting money, we get a further situation where we get some reputational damage if they can’t open,” he said. “We didn’t have the problem before (Federal subsidies) arrived, so it would appear anecdotally that it is causing a problem. “It’s being scaled back now, so the problem should hopefully be relieved in the not-too-distant future.” Mr Wellington said he wanted to remind those who were choosing not to work that the Federal payments would not go on forever. “People have to think about the future because obviously at some stage the the JobKeeper/JobSeeker is going to finish and you wouldn’t want to have a reputation of picking and choosing,” he said. “It is important that people get back to work and the economy keeps going.”