Hospitality staff skills shortages hit South Australia

Australia has issues with skills shortages, particularly in the hospitality industry, and South Australia has been hit particularly hard.

Just ask Simon Kardachi, who has a new pizzeria at Henley Square.

He just can’t find locals to work at his venue.

And that has delayed the opening of what will be his third Melt restaurant.

At this stage, he is planning to open the new Melt with 120 staff. But the problem is finding them. And that’s turning out to be harder than expected.

He’s put a lot of money into it too, spending more than $1 million redeveloping the old Evida site on Seaview Rd.

And he has plenty of experience in the hospitality scene, creating the city centre restaurants Osteria Oggi, Shobosho and Press with his business partners including Ben Kelly,

“We know that the SA Government is focused on job creation and they are also pitching SA as the food and wine capital of Australia,” Mr Kardachi told the Adelaide Advertiser.

“But the businesses that Ben and I are involved with are at the forefront of delivering this food and wine experience and we are struggling to get great people into many vacant roles that we have.

“It makes it difficult to deliver the experience.”

He said there were always high school leavers applying for their jobs but there were issues here. It’s not that easy.

 “(This) means we will spend a lot of time, energy, money on training and educating and many won’t last because they won’t have the diligence and work ethic required,” he told the Adelaide Advertiser.

“Increased number of hospitality venues is a good thing for Adelaide but we are now not only competing for customers, but we are also competing for good staff.”

SA Tourism Association’s Ian Horne said Adelaide’s hospitality scene was struggling with the lack of “skilled, career-minded people”.

“There is a lot of cannibalism that goes on in bars, restaurants and cafes across Adelaide,” Mr Horne told the Adelaide Advertiser.

“Deloitte’s came out with figures which said in 2017 Adelaide had less 15 to 34-year-olds than in the mid 1980s.

“We have less people in that crucial working age group.”

13th December 2017