457 ban to hit restaurants hard

Australia’s leading restaurateurs are warning that the Turnbull government’s restrictions on the 457 visa regime will hurt the hospitality industry.

The problem, they say, is it will lower standards.

They are putting a lot of work into training and development but the bottom line is that finding talent is difficult.

Co-owners of acclaimed Sepia restaurant in Sydney, Martin Benn and Vicki Wild say 457 visas are important for their business.

They not only employ six staff on 457 visas. They have also sponsored several others over the last eight years. And some, they say, got permanent residency.

Mr Benn said there is a real skills shortage in the hospitality industry. They are short on chefs and wait staff so they really have no choice but to use 457 visas to bring in good people.

“We advertise for positions and 95 per cent of people who respond are from overseas or people who are training overseas and want to get a 457 visa after they qualify,” Mr Benn told The Australian.

“But if we can’t sponsor people, we will have to lower the standard or lower the number of people we serve which means we will make less money.

“There are thousands of new seats in restaurants in Sydney this year alone, so who is going to service them if we don’t have enough skilled chefs here in Australia?” he said. “There isn’t anybody here to employ. Australians don’t seem to want to work in hospitality.’’

Restaurateur Matt Moran concurred.

His Solotel Group employs about 1800 hospitality workers in Sydney and Brisbane and 50 positions there are on 457 visas.

All 50, he says, are “very significant jobs.”

“They’re all highly skilled people, chefs, not kitchen hands,” Mr Moran told The Australian.

“We’d be in a lot of trouble if we couldn’t keep our 457 visa employees.”

by Leon Gettler, April 24^th 2017