Merivale boss Justin Hemmes makes big call on migrant workers
Billionaire pub baron, Justin Hemmes, has made a plea to Prime Minister Anthony Albanese as businesses struggle to fill job vacancies.
Hospitality tycoon Justin Hemmes has called on the government streamline the process for skilled migrant workers wanting to come to Australia, as the country continues to deal with a national labour shortage.
Despite Australia’s unemployment rate being just 3.4 per cent, thousands of businesses are struggling to find staff.
Recent data from the Australia Bureau of Statistics (ABS) show there are more than 480,000 job vacancies across the country, which is a 111 per cent increase since February 2020.
Mr Hemmes, CEO of the billion-dollar Merivale empire, spoke to 2GB’s Ben Fordham on Tuesday morning about how the lack of workers is impacting the hospitality industry.
He said the hospitality industry has always heavily relied on foreign workers.
“These people bring over skills and professionalism and talent that we just don’t have her. They become our teachers. They become our mentors,” he said.
“We can bring in a couple of skilled migrants and actually create an entire business around them, which means that we then employ hundreds of locals around those individuals who then train those local people to upskill our talent within this country.”
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Mr Hemmes said visa workers being shut-out by the Covid-19 pandemic has proven that their industry “can’t survive” without skilled migrant workers.
“We have such a shortage of workers and we just can’t fill it within. We need these people to grow our industry. So we need to make up for lost time,” he said.
Prime Minister Anthony Albanese’s jobs and skills summit is set to kick off on Thursday.
Employers will meet with government and unions to discuss solutions to stagnating wages, jobs security and skills shortages.
However, the government has already committed to lifting Australia’s migration intake to battle the labour shortage.
It’s likely the program will grow from 160,000 people a year to as high as 200,000.
Though Mr Albanese acknowledged the current visa process was a handbrake on addressing the skills shortages.
“I know that all of the state and territory governments are concerned about the skills shortages; they are a handbrake on business activity,” he said.
When asked what he would say to Mr Albanese if he were to attend the jobs summit this week, Mr Hemmes urged the government to streamline the process to allow migrant workers into the country.
“We have a golden opportunity to open our doors and welcome talented people who are going to contribute to our economy and allow our industry to grow, which further creates more employment and upskills our talent here,” he said.
“We need to open our doors and welcome these people and streamline the process. Welcome them into this wonderful country that we live in … and we need to make up for lost time.”
Mr Hemmes said this was an opportunity to make up for the impacts of the Covid-19 and open our doors to “talented people that are going to contribute positively to our economy”.
“So let’s streamline the process. Don’t let them wait six months or 12 months,” the pub baron said.
“We are competing against every other country in the world to these for this talent. We need to be competitive, we need to be affordable, and we need to be streamlined.”
This follows a recent plea from NSW Treasurer Matt Kean to the federal government to fast track visas for foreign workers amid chronic staff shortages.
Writing in The Australian, he said he wanted a new visa category targeting lower-skilled occupations.
A direction to unclog the visa approval process has been given to Home Affairs Minister Clare O’Neil.
“You are not going to have a summit on Thursday and Friday and wake up on Saturday and there are no skills shortages; that is not what is going to happen,” Mr Albanese told reporters in Sydney.
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