The real cost of Australia’s worker shortage crisis | Four Corners

Australia is in dire need of workers.

From healthcare and teaching, to farms and the factory floor, the country is in the grip of a national labour shortage.

Regional towns like Griffith, in central NSW, are crying out for more workers while those still in jobs struggle to shoulder the burden.

Across the country, 470,900 jobs remain unfilled and job vacancies have jumped 40 per cent in the last year.

The federal government has promised to speed up Australia’s visa processing system to bring in more foreign workers, but there’s a massive backlog to work through: almost 70,000 applications for temporary and permanent skilled visas alone.

Four Corners investigates what’s behind this crisis, and the financial, physical and emotional toll it’s taking.

__________

If this story has raised any issues, you can contact Lifeline on 13 11 14 or Beyond Blue on 1300 22 4636.

_________

___________

Note: In most cases, our captions are auto-generated.

#ABCNewsIndepth #ABCNewsAustralia

[pepperhardcastle]

People can't fnd anywhere to live. How do they expect people to move to a job if they have to literally live in a tent because rents are either unaffordable or non existent. They should have mentioned this more in the story because its a huge factor, especially in the regions.

[mayormccheese]

Now Four Corners, tell the rest of the story - you have to be a doctor to AFFORD to move to Griffith. Nobody is moving there to pick fruit, serve coffee or work in childcare when even the cheapest house in town is 600K+. It is too expensive to move most anywhere in regional Australia. A home in a country town is now just as overpriced as the big cities.

[TOA]

Let me put it this way. No one wants to get a 3 year degree so that they can get paid 23 dollars an hour with a huge amount of responsibility.

[joshmaclean]

I quit my career of 26 years in the luxury hotel industry. Being pushed, unappreciated and the realisation I was just a number. The public were ruder than ever before. I would wake up in the morning dreading how much abuse I would receive today. . The company filling the property over and over even though we did not have the staff to manage it. Disgusting. Every single experienced hotelier I know has left. Now I have social anxiety, I stock shelves in a supermarket at night to avoid the public. (I really enjoy the work). 3 years ago I would never have dreamed this would happen.

[freethinker]

Australian Workers have propped up the corporate profits with little real wage growth. I for one worked for a US construction company in Australia working 70 hr a week until I was put in hospital into intensive care for work stress related hart issues. The site I was working on was remote 1000 km from home. This company didn't even send anyone to ensure I had a change of clothing from my work cloth. I was dumped and forgotten until a work colleague noticed I was not at work and started asking question. The company didn't even notify my next of kin. The American manager i had at the time showed no regard for his staff only for production and his won position in the company. Note event his boss also an American showed similar traits. It has been 8 years since this occurrence and I still suffer stress issues. I was pushed out of my position and have found it hard to find work since. At the time Australia’s worker shortage resulted in the exploitation of 457 visas allowing these so called professional managers to come to Australia from the US. We have a worker shortage because the coalition government over the last 10 years has not supported skills training of Australia to fill the position. Further employers and corporate have only look a profits and not succession planing. I have sympathy for the workers but no sympathy employers and corporate as they have created a psychopathic culture in workplaces at the deportment of there employees.

[b-cw]

Once upon a time I thought about immigrating to Australia. Then I looked at your immigration system and concluded that the Australian government doesn't want immigrants.

[nswpublicservant]

Go speak to backpackers who have worked months without pay, with unwanted sexual advances and blackmailed to be able to extend their visas. Our 'poor' farmers are a bunch of grubs taking advantage of people. They are an embarrassment to Australia.

[nadinewhittome]

This is what happens when society's values are driven by instant gratification, convenience and greed. Until essential services, food production (off the land and not in science laboratories) and contribution to community is given the importance it deserves, our society will continue to decline.
'You can't eat money'

[nathanhallisey]

Get a job but then you cant find a place to rent because its way too expensive. The system is broken.

[aussie]

This is what happens when you rely on the politicians to manage our society. Lots of funds for car parks and sporting stadiums yet no vision for our skilled workforce present and future needs.

[southernstargazer]

Travelling to many regional parts of Australia this year we found there was insufficient permanent accommodation for potential workers. They won't come if there's nowhere to live.

[craigbennett]

I had plans on working up to 65. I am skilled tradesman in heavy diesel mechanics. The dynamics have changed in the workforce and I struggled working with the mindset of the younger people.
I retired early, best thing I ever did.

[narelleschulze]

I worked as a nurse in Aged Care, doing doubles and days on end. Yes need more nurses but not more paperwork, this is another issue that has got out of hand. Not enough time spending one on one care with residents that desperately need it. Reorganisation of nursing practice and more nurses would help

[Cassiopeia]

No offense to those who are having issues but I was a while ago one of those fruit pickers. Picking oranges. What a coincidence.

The ugly truth is that this is a tough job. You are all day left to your own devices in the field.
There is no safety. Fall from the ladder, tough luck. Forgot your water, too bad! No food! Too bad as well.
No toilets.

Let's no talk about the bad pay either. I was getting $22 per bin. A bin is big plastic container that can hold around 300 kilos of oranges. It takes you about an hour and half to fill.

So most days I made around $88 because by the time you reach the 4th or 5th bin you are shattered.
Did you know that orange trees have needles? By the time I was done working on the farm, my arms had scars everywhere. Gloves are not provided. Your picking bag is not provided. You have to buy your own picking attire.

Oh and worst of all, everyone in town knows you are a fruit picker so they jack up the price of everything to squeeze every last dime out of you. Case an point when i bought my picking bag, i paid $90 to get it. Only one shop it town sold them. Talk about a rip off. And when you leave, you can choose to sell it back to them for less than $20.

These bags were then rented to even more unfortunate people who could not afford to buy their own bags outright.

What about accommodation? You had to stay in hostel or on an approved camping ground who had a business deal with the farmers(kickbacks) . Should you choose to move out and find another accommodation, you would suddenly be removed from shifts and not get any work. Thus not being able to complete your mandatory 90 days quota to get your second year visa.

Same as the picking bag, my rent for my bare-bones camping spot went up 30% after 6 weeks just because. Where could I go? Ther was nowhere to go. No way to escape. So i paid.

I wont even get into the problem of actually getting paid which sometimes could take weeks. I am not even going to talk about the sexual harassment towards women that I have witnessed and heard through the grapevine.

So you want to find people to pick your trees? Pay them. And treat people with dignity and respect just like you would like anyone else to treat you.
When I was picking fruit I was just a number, a walking wallet and after working my butt off for 90 days I only had one wish, to get the hell away from that place as quickly as possible.

I love Australia, but the farmers, they only have themselves to blame for this problem.

[Elena_G]

To be honest I'm furious! I came to Australia 2, 5 years ago. I've been learning English from scratch and I thought if I could speak English I would find job in Australia easily. However all my application have been declined because I'm a student visa holder. Furthermore I have diploma as a teacher-psychologist in primary school, I have two masters degree as an engineer and as a manager, I used to work for the Russian Navy for 10 years but who cares? Just because it's Russian it's not listed in Australia so I have to study again but I can't afford it because I can't get well paid job. Nobody wants to deal with student visa holder. Getting certificate III in childcare for overseas students is incredibly expensive. I have so many friends with outstanding degree and work experience and they would love to come and work. Australian government deserves all those problems. There is huge staff shortage because education is unaffordable and getting even student visa is complicated.

[kjblundell]

I'm always suspicious of the fruit producers claims of inability to find workers. Everything I have ever heard of these businesses can only find overseas workers for the jobs as the conditions are terrible, the job is backbreaking and the pay is not worth it.
I feel awful seeing all that waste and have empathy for those struggling but that doesn't change the fact tha we need to re-evaluate how we look at and treat work forces. The fact of it is commercialism is a pyramid scheme and it got way to unbalanced and all the people feeling the effects are arguing amongst themselves over scraps while the few at the top of the pile create narratives that people just don't want to work.
How do they think we are going to convince our youth to break their back working full time for a wage that doesn't even nearly cover the cost of living and with a work/life balance completely out of whack ?.

[jasonhemphill]

American here. Accounting background. Fomer business owner. Come to Oz because I've heard there is a massive worker shortage and it's an interesting place. Paperwork took ages to process. Land in Sydney. Rent is exorbitant. Cost of living is high. Pay is relatively low compared to the states. Apply to 60 jobs in various industries. Never get a call back from any of them. Leave the country. Haven't looked back.

I didn't fly across the world to pick fruit and wait tables for minimum wage.

[alexanderkozlov]

Of those who prepared the episode, has anyone bothered asking a question where those workers that are so needed in Griffith are going to live? As of 2 December, there are 3 places for rent and 4 to buy in 50 km radius. And those available are not cheap, in fact they are more expensive than outer suburbs on Melbourne.

Point is you cannot have it both ways - either affordable housing and workers or "equity mate" and no workers.

[alanbstard]

there is no shortage of people to work. Pay them a proper wage and stop using cheap labour as a backdoor to immigration.

[ubonrat]

Finding somewhere to live is the real challenge I'd gladly moved out there but it's too hard to find somewhere to live, Australias obsession with real estate value has come back to bite