Australia’s hospitality and tourism industry is so short staffed the government is in discussions to import 36,000 cooks, waiters, hotel managers, bartenders and other skilled workers to fill vacancies; with another 56,000 needed by 2015, according to federal Tourism Minister, Martin Ferguson.
This situation has been caused to a significant extent by Australians moving from the hospitality industry into higher paying mining and resources jobs. With tourism being worth $35 billion annually to Australia, the government needs to act quickly to address the situation, particularly in regional areas.
A template labour agreement will be developed, to help to ease labour and skills pressures by improving the tourism and hospitality industry's ability to attract and retain labour in some of the occupations identified by the industry as being in critical shortage.
Australia's Immigration Minister, Mr Chris Bowen, said the agreement would cover waiters, chefs, bar attendants, hotel managers and other occupations which are hard to fill locally, or may be ineligible under other migration programs.
Under the new hospitality visa plan, tourism and hospitality employers would be able to bring in workers on a two to three year visa similar to the subclass 457 visa program.
“Of course, employers would need to show they are doing their best to employ and train domestic workers and paying market rates,” he said.
'Approved employers could nominate workers for temporary skilled subclass 457 visas using the template, enabling workers to be granted visas where they meet the requirements.
Hospitality is only one of a number of areas experiencing a lack of Australian workers. Others include taxi driving, fruit picking, domestic and commercial cleaning, labouring and car washing.
