There are almost enough unfilled roles in Australia to employ everyone collecting unemployment benefits, with even one six-figure position left empty.
Despite workers being able to earn $2,000 a week, there is a serious manpower shortage in a variety of occupations, including orange picking.
According to a Facebook post by Nationals MP Anne Webster, the orange harvests for this season are being allowed to wither on the ground.
A record-low number of qualified overseas employees and a lack of desire on the side of Australians have made it difficult for several sectors to fill positions since the onset of the pandemic.
Citrus pickers can currently earn $400 per day working from 10.30 to 4.30. She penned, “That amounts to $2,000 weekly.
The crops are in jeopardy of being damaged, though, because there are so few workers. The citrus sector, worth $520 million, is lucrative.
If it lands on the ground, it is worthless.
Ms. Webster claims that the industry is in “crisis,” and labor hire businesses are dealing with an unprecedented staffing scarcity.
She went on to say that the market is actually a workers’ market and that she had been directly informed by nearby farmers that they were paying $40 for each bin.
As people go from farm to farm saying, “That’s not enough money, I’m going to the next farm,” the possibility exists, she continued.
Citrus pickers can currently earn $400 per day working from 10.30 to 4.30. She penned, “That amounts to $2,000 weekly.
The crops are in jeopardy of being damaged, though, because there are so few workers.
The citrus sector, worth $520 million, is lucrative. If it lands on the ground, it is worthless.
Ms. Webster claims that the industry is in “crisis,” and labor hire businesses are dealing with an unprecedented staffing scarcity.
She went on to say that the market is actually a workers’ market and that she had been directly informed by nearby farmers that they were paying $40 for each bin.
As people go from farm to farm saying, “That’s not enough money, I’m going to the next farm,” the possibility exists, she continued.
In May, there were a record number of 480,000 available vacancies, up 14% from February, according to the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS).
More than twice as many Australians, 548,000, as did so before the pandemic, when it was only 225,000.
The staggering quarterly increase “reflected increasing demand for workers, particularly in customer-facing roles, with businesses continuing to face disruptions to their operations, as well as ongoing labor shortages,” Bjorn Jarvis, the ABS’s head of labor statistics, was quoted by The Australian as saying.
In contrast to before the outbreak, when there were three times as many unemployed persons as vacant positions, Mr. Jarvis claimed that the unemployment rate was today roughly st parallel to open positions.
According to ABS data, Western Australia, the state with the nation’s strongest Covid border controls, had 40% more job opportunities than individuals who were deemed to be “unemployed.”
For every unemployed person in Western Australia, there are 1.4 vacant positions.
According to ABS data, the arts and recreation industry saw the second-largest growth in vacancies nationwide, trailing closely behind the hospitality and culinary industries.