The new state of Australia has just been unsealed, and the enthusiasm of people to consume is unstoppable.
At the same time, merchants are also facing a problem, that is, there is a shortage of labor.
In order to recruit workers, merchants have also begun to "roll up".
Recently, the owner of a restaurant in Sydney said,
Her family's dishwasher made the following request:
Hope to increase the hourly wage of weekend work to 50 Australian dollars (¥250)!
Competitor restaurants, on the other hand, offered the restaurant manager a signing bonus of $20,000 (¥100,000).
Image source: AFR
Leigh, owner of Bodhi Restaurant, said she had never seen the industry face in her 30-year career in the hospitality industry, which needed to meet the near-insurmountable needs of its employees.
The restaurant industry blames labor shortages on Australia's closed international borders.
In the pre-pandemic workforce,
International students and backpackers make up a large proportion.
"There are a lot of locals who don't want to do this job, I don't understand," Leigh said. "I don't understand why the unemployment rate in the country is so high and we're still trying to fill those jobs."
Leigh said even if international borders reopen, the industry is unlikely to see overseas workers return quickly.
She believes that better working conditions and allowances will attract more employees rather than higher pay.
She pays her employees more than the minimum wage — temporary workers have 25 knives (125 yuan) per hour.
Employee function and a good working atmosphere are important to her, she says, and her managers need to meet KPIs based on employee satisfaction.
Ms Leigh said her restaurant offered opportunities to upgrade their skills and experienced bartenders charged more tips than others.
"The longer you work in our company and the more you learn about tipping, the more your tip income will reach an unexpected level."
Even before the COVID-19 pandemic, wages in Australia barely caught up with inflation.
But the hotel industry has said wages will start to rise because they are willing to offer higher salaries to employees to recruit talent.
Leigh said some dishwashers asked for $35 an hour and would rise to $50 on weekends, which is also the case with her friends in the food and beverage industry.
One of her restaurant's more experienced bartenders recently told her to move to Sydney's suburbs.
But Leigh very much wanted him to stay and asked him what conditions he needed to stay.
He asked for reimbursement for gasoline and parking on the way to work.
Ms. Leigh refused,
But it raised everyone's salary and the bartender's share of the tip.
Leigh said: "The reason I didn't say yes ... Because this demand is unprecedented. ”
That's the same reason she's reluctant to pay 50 knives an hour to a dishwasher, she said.
At one point, Leigh's head chef also had to help with the dishes.
Her top restaurant manager receives daily signing invitations from other restaurants, one of which gave him a $20,000 signing bonus.
Leigh said businesses are torn between offering higher wages to fill the tech talent shortage and driving down prices for customers.
"It's not easy to be a little bit caught in the middle of this sort of thing," she said.
In North Sydney, BarLume's manager Adam Choker also spoke about the demand for skilled and unskilled workers, including dishwashers.
Looking for employees is "definitely a nightmare," he said, and his bar only sells coffee and pastries because they have a hard time finding more baristas and new chefs.
"Another point is becoming a problem: in order for these people to join us, we now have to pay a premium for their skills,"
"The next question is whether these restaurants can hold on."
Choker said reopening the international border would help, but it would take about 6 months.
"The stadium is really busy and we can make more money, but we just can't keep the door open," he says.
Image source: indaily
Alan Bowen-James, executive dean of the Sydney campus of the internationally renowned Le Cordon Bleu culinary school, called on the government to reopen international borders. (Australia's largest Internet celebrity Douyin account "Micro Sydney", take you to see the interesting things about Australian life!) Essential for studying abroad travel immigrants! Please search for "Micro Sydney" on TikTok, we are waiting for you here! ）
He said the school had lost a large portion of its international students who could have become interns at NSW hospitality enterprises.
Bowen-James said: "These people are experienced and they learn on the job. It was a reciprocal arrangement. ”
He also said that in the post-pandemic Australian economy, hospitality and tourism may be the two major export products.
"If the government is serious about our future, we have to get those students back."
I believe that with the improvement of the epidemic, it will no longer be far away to welcome the return of international students and migrant vacationers.
I hope that the service industry will persevere a little longer, and soon we can see the dawn!