Farmers fear NT worker crisis could last for several years

THE workforce crisis threatening the businesses of Territory farmers is likely to be worse next year, NT Farmers chief executive Paul Burke has said.

• NT’s largest mango operation faces $14m loss due to worker shortage
• Overseas workforce set to come to NT farmers’ rescue

THE workforce crisis threatening the businesses of Territory farmers is likely to be worse next year, NT Farmers chief executive Paul Burke has said.

“We need to be starting to work now on workforce development ahead of what could be an even bigger crisis next year,” Mr Burke said.

“You can safely say that farmers are going to have a skilled worker shortage problem for the next two to three years at least.

“Even once the borders do open up it would be hard to think that there is going to be a hell of a lot of backpackers saying ‘yep, I’m going to go away for my gap year’.

A worker packs mangoes in the Skliros Mangoes packing shed. Picture: Che Chorley

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“It is going to take time to build up again to that critical mass of 150,000 backpackers floating around wanting work.

“We’re at sub 60,000 of them at the moment and by Christmas a lot of them will have gone home. It is unlikely there will be backpackers flying into Australia in the medium term.”

Mr Burke said the complexities around quarantine had added to the problems this season.

“The costs to quarantine make it prohibitive and the fact there is no international flights really coming just makes it really hard,” he said.

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“There is a cap on the number of people that are allowed to come back to Australia and all indications are it will be at least the middle of next year before we see any movement outside of a seasonal worker program.

“Although we do have a pathway now for that, so we can bring more of those in as required.”

Mr Burke said another problem has been the quality of the workers available with few having had experience, which hurts productivity.