Perth hotelier blames Jobseeker for lack of staff

The manager of a Perth hotel with six job vacancies he can’t manage fill, blames the government’s Jobseeker scheme for the lack of interest.

Max Fox-Andrews, manager of the Windsor Hotel in South Perth, has bartending, waitressing and chef roles all available, but isn’t receiving many applications.

Fox-Andrews believes the government payments are too high and people would prefer to receive Jobseeker payments of $1100 per fortnight rather than actually work. 

“Usually we wouldn’t have a problem encouraging staff to come and work for us,” Mr Fox-Andrews told Sunrise. “But what we’ve seen is a decline in applications and a decline in decent staff with experience apply to us.” 

In the lead up to Christmas, the pub owner usually receives up to 400 applications. This year he has hardly received any. 

Mr Fox-Andrews also said that many students are refusing to work as the money handed out by the government is higher than what they would earn. 

“Students see sometimes that JobSeeker is a better way of earning more money because they can obviously only do limited shifts,” he said. 

Fox-Andrews has even offered a $250 cash incentive to staff who stay employed at the pub for longer than three months. 

The fortnightly government supplement is set to decrease this Friday from $550 to $250 and is set to continue at that rate until the end of 2020. The government is yet to announce what will happen after that. 

With this decrease, Fox-Andrews hopes to see more people applying for jobs.