Battle of the bludge: Lack of workers hits farmers, restaurants

They barely managed to scrape through the pandemic lockdown, but the state’s restaurateurs and farmers are now faced with a new threat to their livelihoods — lazy Aussies.

They have managed to ­barely scrape through the pandemic lockdown but the state’s restaurateurs and farmers are now faced with a new threat to their livelihoods — lazy Aussies.

Popular Sydney eateries are being forced to turn away hundreds of customers and close several nights a week due to a lack of staff, while ­orchard growers are watching their businesses wither on the vine — literally — because there are no temporary mig­rants here to do the work that unemployed Australians are refusing to do.

Attila Yilmaz has been forced to turn customers away from Pazar Food Collective. Picture: AAP/Image Matthew Vasilescu

Canterbury restaurateur Attila Yilmaz is struggling to get enough workers for his Pazar Food Collective eatery, despite paying prospective employees for their interview time and offering staff a free meal on their first shift.

“This week was the third or fourth Wednesday night we’ve been shut this month, I just don’t have the staff,’’ he said.

“I’ve been searching for a restaurant manager for 18 months and I’ve got four waiters instead of eight.

“I need a certain amount of customers to break even, but without the staff I’m turning away about 200 people who want to eat here a week.

“I’m getting to the point of begging people to work.”

Pazar’s Instagram post announcing it would not open on Wednesday night because of a lack of staff.

The historic Lord Nelson brewery in The Rocks has also been forced to shut its brasserie restaurant due to a lack of staff and is having trouble finding cleaners for the upstairs accommodation.

“You put an ad out in the paper for bar staff or kitchen staff, and you try to organise trials and some don’t even turn up,” brewery operations manager Kristian Savio said.

Merivale chief human resources officer Jess Furolo said closed borders had led to an under-supply of labour — partly because foreign workers brought skills we did not have available here.

She said the company was trying to highlight the career prospects of entry-level positions like front of house staff and kitchen hands.

About 220,000 overseas workers left the labour market between December 2019 and March this year.

Chef Luke Mangan has had to slash the number of days his CBD restaurant Glass Brasserie is open from seven down to four because of the staff shortage.

“A lot of visa workers went home and 10,000 jobs a week are advertised in our industry. We want to employ Aussies but we can’t because they’re not applying,” he said.

Apple grower Guy Gaeta — with, from back, son Michael, wife Sim, and grandchildren Alexis and Owen — says few Australians wants to pick his fruit. Picture: Steve Gosch

It is not just the hospitality industry suffering from a lack of workers.

Orange fruit farmer Guy Gatea said he was ­having difficulty attracting Australians to pick his apples and cherries, with locals “working just a couple of hours and then leaving”.

“There doesn’t seem to be the drive like there used to be,” he said.

Cleaning companies are also struggling for staff, with one owner saying welfare is “making people lazy’’.

“I can’t get cleaners. I need them and can’t find ones I can rely on,” Dimitri Pap­adimitriou, from the Star Cleaning Company, said.

“Many just want the money and cut corners. The government is making it too easy for people without a job. It’s encouraging people to be lazy.”

The Lord Nelson operations manager Kristian Savio has been hit by a staff shortage. Picture: Toby Zerna

Nathan Louwellan, from Wagga Wagga Meat Supply, said they had been struggling to find apprentices ­because many would prefer to stay on welfare.

Employment Minister Stuart Robert said the government was launching a campaign to get every young person currently on Youth ­Allowance into a job — contacting each of the 122,000 recipients individually.

Mr Robert said the number of young Australians getting benefit payments while not studying or working was “not acceptable”, and they would soon be reminded of their “mutual obligations”.

“We know where they live, we know which jobs are available within close proximity to where they live,’’ he said. “People can’t just sit under the doona.”

Mr Robert said a big part of the problem was that the nation had “become used to bringing in immigrants to do a lot of jobs”.