Canberra push for grey nomads to fill workforce shortfall in the Territory

The Territory’s tourism and hospitality sectors are heading to Canberra in a move that may see more grey nomads working in the NT.

THE Territory’s tourism and hospitality sectors are heading to Canberra in a move that may see more grey nomads working in the NT.

Tourism Top End, Hospitality NT, the Chamber of Commerce NT and Tourism NT have been putting together proposed solutions, which if adopted, will go a long way to solving the Territory’s workforce crisis.

The organisations want temporary changes to pension income testing and a lifting on the cap of 20 hours that international students can work.

Tourism Top End general manager Glen Hingley said these are two of a number of levers the federal government can do to ease the worker shortfall that has hit businesses ahead of a busy dry season.

“Our grey nomads that are coming are still a very skilled workforce, but now reliant on a pension … if the federal government’s pension income test was put aside while Australia has this worker shortage crisis many would return to work,” he said. “This would be only a temporary lift on restrictions stopping grey nomads and international students from doing more in the workforce.

“Grey nomads come with their own accommodation and it means caravan parks can have cooks, gardeners and have people on reception checking people in. We need the workforce and the grey nomads are ready to work while they travel Australia.”

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Mr Hingley said student caps is another area that could have temporary change.

“International Students living in the Territory want the 20 hour a week cap lifted and so do we because these students want to work more hours and we need them to do that,” Mr Hingley said.

“At the moment if they work longer than 20 hours they are in breach of their visa.

“Another way to help solve the workforce crisis is people with a second job. We know there is a tax free threshold on your first job and there is a higher tax rate on your second job. If we can eliminate that temporarily so that people in the casual workforce have incentive to do that.”