The closure of Australia’s international borders has had a devastating effect on the Outback workforce, with many rural communities struggling to fill job vacancies.
However, the extended crisis has left many in the bush wondering whether they had become over-reliant on overseas labour, particularly backpackers.
Blackall-Tambo Regional Council mayor Andrew Martin told the ABC that, while backpackers had played a crucial part in the local agricultural industry, it was time to rethink the Outback workforce.
“We are a subject of our own complacency,” he said. “Covid has closed international borders, and we’ve found ourselves coming up terribly, terribly short.”
Mr Martin told the ABC it was time to look at the silver lining because this shortage has provided rural industries with an opportunity to rebuild local workforces.
“I think there’s something like 200,000 vacancies in remote and rural Australia at the moment … there’s a lot of jobs there but no people to fill them,” he said. “We took our eye off the ball and Covid-19 has brought our eyes very much back on the ball.”
Boulia Shire Mayor Rick Britton told the ABC he agreed with Cr Martin.
“We’re in dire straights,” he said. “Without backpackers, it’s really highlighted how reliant we are and how we’ve dropped the ball.”
With so many rural job vacancies, many of them casual, grey nomads are increasingly being seen as at least a partial fix.
I would love to work while on the road and I am a short order cook and art teacher working in mental health but I am also a carer for my mother who is travelling with me and has dementia so this is not an option for me at the moment.
My first job in Australia was picking fruit in Sheperton Vic in 1975. I spent many years as an itinerate rural worker until the Backpacker epidemic forced me and pretty much everyone else in my age group out of work and onto the dole. Don’t know what the deal was but there must have been some sort of kick back scheme. In 2013 I was at the Loxton caravan park SA looking for orange picking, surrounded by backpackers who were working 7 days a week and I could get nothing but a few hours, once or twice. Now at 68 they want me to go pick their fruit because the poor buggars can’t get Backpackers? Yeah that’s gunna happen.
I agree when Aussies needed a job they weren’t interested because they could get cheap labor ,now they will have to pay proper wages .
Yes, backpackers were cheap (underpaid) labour. Not just on farms where those on working holiday visas needed to work to be able to extend visa for second year. City hospitality jobs were also taken by cheap hire backpackers. Now instead of labour shortage increasing wages, the National government has allowed international students still here to be able to legally work more than 20 hours per week. Certain Nationalities will happily work for less so they can get ‘permanent residency’ just because they’ve been employed for two years!! Bad luck for big employers when after they’ve got residency they join unions and take their former employers to court for underpayment – Dominos, 7/11, to name a few. Meanwhile many Australians are stuck on the dole or have to work for $10 per hour.
Dodgy employers are not scrutinised.
Malcolm, hit the nail on the head mate. Im 68 and did grape picking and worked 2 jobs just to get through my apprenticeship. When I was still at High School, my dad had a heart attack, & could not get the support there was to day. I totally agree with all the comments on this issue.
Oh yeah now they want the Grey Nomads! ..They didn’t want us before and now they are saying .
GREY NOMADS ARE ONLY A PARTIAL FIX..Well thats not very nice…So when the Backpackers come back DOES that mean they will DROP US again…They might learn this time to INCLUDE THE GREY NOMADS…Just because we are older doesn’t mean we cant work!!..
There are heaps of able bodied men/women able to work. .
Just GIVE US A BLOODY CHANCE!!…STOP JUDGING US ON OUR AGE!!..JUDGE US ON OUR WORK.
This is total bullshit.If this is the case why do we have anyone on the dole. In my day if there wasnt a job locally you went looking for a job.We have made it that easy to get the dole,that the unemployed dont have to get off there backsides.We should not pay able bodied people to stay at home when there is work availble.Over my time I have done plenty of jobs that I didnt like but cicumstances said otherwise. In Bundaberg Qld the farmers have fruit and veges rot in the paddock because they cant get labour. Bundaberg has a long unemployment line full of fit young people.Its funny the bloke up the road will not lower himself to do picking and his excuse is he cant get to the farm, yet the little Swedish backpacker only half his size can get from one side of the world to the other with only what is on her back and pick and pack. Stop the dole for the ones rorting the system, get them of there backsides and this will fix the problem. Yes there are genuine cases but there are a bloody lot of lazy buggers .Stevo.
Yeah i feel you , i have even had these same thoughts too, so go, work for your ten dollars a hour, see how far that gets you. If one works that hard for the money do they get discounts at the grocery store fuel halves for them everything in our societies infrastucture halve for those getting less than half the’ epa’ wage right to be australian.. no..before you rant and rave at me. No i am not on the dole, yes i have worked the fruit picking industry, yes i have been a conforming society donor, i have military service have done a lot of things since, but dont react , stop , take a breath then think, that toyota 4×4 that 90 percent of farmers drive thats a 90 thousand dollar car, they got that by getting a cheap work force, they still want that but now expect australians of a first world country to work the payment of a third world or second world country, no these farmers can drive the dato, there kids can go to public schools these farmers need to ‘pay’ the australian rate to australians..or come up with incentives to balance it all
Last year in Vic. alone almost 50,000 people applied for farm work and guess how many were employed , not one
Yeah, farmers really did shoot themselves in the foot. In 08′, we tried to get a bit of work, in CQ, and was told by a farmer he only wanted Backpackers, I believe that farmer, has plowed his crops into the ground this year, for 2 years in a row. I have though of ringing him up, and say this is what you get , by not offering work to Aussies all those years ago.
Spent a week pulling carrots as a teenager – I only touch carrots with a fork now.
I am confused. We have worked the harvest with GrainCorp and enjoyed every minute. This year we registered with the harvest trail firstly for the vintage harvest and now for strawberries in Qld. Never heard back from the vintage although regularly followed up and now we seem to be experiencing the same with the strawberries. Is there truely a shortage of workers? Not all bad as we are enjoying the toad trip and escaping the building noise at home!
Why would I work for reduced wages to reduce my pension payments ? I would love to work a couple of days a week to help out vege/fruit growers but NOT TO IF IT ŔEDUCES MY ALREADY SMALL PENSION
I love the idea. I would be open to the idea of part-time work helping build and setup off-grid solar to provide power to rural areas that really need it, since I have a fair bit of experience in that area.
would be great if the government did not penalize the retirees or pensioners with reduced centerlink payments i for one would love to help out our hard working farmers but the government would rather give support to isa holders and backpackers
I find this extreme dire labour work shortages a complete media beat up.
There are lots lots lots lots of stories out there of plenty of people applying for jobs and don’t even get a response.
The labour shortage can’t be that bad
Sure there are some GNs keen to assist IF they were paid basic wages and NOT piece rates. Instead of underpaying migrant workers with some paid as little as $1/hour pay, pay the proper wage. You reap what you sow.
Have always love have work in the harvest field but the amount you can be paid is so small had the hour’s are to long we are 60 plus so get nomads to do short shifts but we can’t that travel money to go the country
There’s fault on both sides; I’m now too old an injured to do it but in the 70s after my kids went to school I picked apples at Lenswood, peeled onions at Hahndorf and my husband picked strawberries, in those days you did whatever you could to put food on the table; until you found a more suitable job. Actually I quite liked picking apples but I wasn’t very good at it, but it paid the bill.
I think the farmers have become soft, crying daily into each spoonfull of cornflakes. The back packer trade off gave them more money into their pockets allowed them to sit back on the verandah and watch their wallets grow, but now a tidal wave has sunk the cheap labour boat. We all worked hard for our coin when we were young and dumb, now we are older and wiser, i think farmers need to re think their options.
More so the councils with the farmers.need to think outside the box at options ofvwhat can be offered to get their industries up and running,
Money is the object of the game always has been but that grow rich farmer scheme has to come to a stop, in australia the australians get paid more because our modern society has maximum overhead costs, the price of having a first world country, so no the old generation are not the answer loosening the wallet structures and good old fashioned ” fair go” are needed to be re structured.
So much rubbish. I passed through Shepparton a few months back and went to the main employment agency looking for some farm work. I was given one option only. I rang the number, only to be told they wouldn’t need anything for a week or more. There’s a big disconnect between the rubbish we are being sold and the reality. Right wing political lies.