Queensland pub desperate for staff offers $1000 incentive

A Queensland pub that’s at breaking point in its search for staff is now offering a $1000 incentive to any new workers.

A pub on Queensland’s coast is so desperate for staff that it’s offering a $1000 incentive to new workers.

After a year of 80-hour work weeks, owner and manager of the Kenilworth Hotel, Steve Conway, has had enough.

While the 53-year-old has been supported by his wife and children, he told the Sunshine Coast Daily it had been “impossible” to find bar staff or kitchen hands for the past 12 to 18 months – part of a wider worker shortage crisis that’s decimated the Sunshine State’s hospitality and tourism sectors.

Offering a cash bonus to potential employees, Mr Conway said, is a last-ditch attempt to get some help.

“I’ve never done it [the bonus] before in my life, but that’s how tough it’s been,” he told the paper.

A pub on Queensland’s coast is so desperate for staff that it’s offering a $1000 incentive to new workers. Picture: Patrick Woods.

Despite advertising the bonus on social media and receiving five applicants who agreed to come in and be interviewed, not one of them showed up.

Unemployment figures for July this year showed 6.1 per cent of the Sunshine Coast was without a job.

“All these people unemployed but we can’t get anyone offering a cash bonus. It’s mind boggling,” Mr Conway said.

“Where are they? We just can’t get them in. They don’t apply or don’t show.”

Also appearing on 9 News, Mr Conway said successful applicants won’t get the bonus straight away – instead receiving it after six months on the job, on top of a wage.

Experience is also not necessary, with anybody interested encouraged to apply through the pub’s Facebook page.

Unemployment figures for July this year showed 6.1 per cent of the Sunshine Coast was without a job.

Speaking to the Sunshine Coast Daily, Mojo Recruitment spokesman Julian Bakarich said small towns like Kenilworth had been impacted by not having travellers on holiday visas since the pandemic began.

He said strict international and state border closures had also created problems for employers.

“Domestic travellers have also been a large resource for younger Australians to tour, and stop and settle for a while making some money and saving for their next leg of the journey,” he said.

“Queensland’s strict border policy with other states has directly impacted the people allowed into the state that would traditionally use places like Kenilworth as one of their stops.

“The lack of these employees has definitely impacted the job ecosystem in these fringe tourist towns and there is a shortage of willing and available people to fulfil the need.”

Originally published as Queensland pub desperate for staff offers $1000 incentive