One minute you’re running, the next you’re at a standstill

Mikayla White should have spent the weekend at The Running Company in Yarraville, where she helps to fit shoes for speedsters and weekend warriors alike across Melbourne’s western suburbs.

$500 pay lost to lockdown....Dietetics student and casual worker Mikayla White on Sunday. Picture: NCA NewsWire / Luis Ascui

Mikayla White should have spent the weekend at The Running Company in Yarraville, where she helps to fit shoes for speedsters and weekend warriors alike across Melbourne’s western suburbs.

Instead, the 25-year-old was stuck at home per government orders and, like tens of thousands of other casual workers, wondering how to make up for a week’s lost pay.

This latest lockdown – the fourth for the state in just over a year – will leave her about $500 worse off.

“Because I’m still at uni full time and have to fit in work around that, I don’t have that many hours free where I can work,” Ms White said.

“And so I don’t have a huge amount of savings to fall back on. I support myself 100 per cent and it makes me quite anxious not knowing how long this is going to go on for and whether it’s going to happen again.”

Currently studying a master’s degree in dietetics, Ms White lost her previous job during Melbourne’s extended lockdown last year. Fortunately she was able to survive on JobSeeker payments. This time there is no safety net.

One of her two flatmates also works casually and is in a similar predicament. Each pays about $800 a month in rent.

As a war of words broke out on Sunday between the Victorian and federal governments over the state’s demand for wages subsidies, Ms White says she’d welcome further support for casual workers who were disadvantaged as a result of snap lockdowns.

“I think if the government is forcing casual workers out of work due to their decisions then there should be some sort of acknowledgment of the hardship,” she said. “I don’t know what I’d do if this were to go on longer that the seven days; how I’d cover my expenses.”