Staff crisis continues to affect Australia’s top restaurants
The hospitality staff crisis is affecting restaurants country-wide, as customers are turned away due to capped table numbers.
A major issue is the lack of cooks, which is affecting the likes of Neil Perry’s Margaret and Chris Lucas’ Lucas Restaurants.
Top chefs are now saying dining at Australia’s most sought-after restaurants will become increasingly more difficult.
“Australia is now seen as a difficult country to do business with,” Melbourne restaurateur Chris Lucas told The Australian. “There was significant brand damage done during Covid. Australia locked its doors to the world and employees have found other markets.”
Across the country’s hospitality industry, there are more than 100,000 vacancies, with skilled migrant visas taking more than seven months to process.
It also costs up to $12,000 to get the migrant visa paperwork completed.
“We can’t keep fooling ourselves,” Lucas said. “We are competing in a global market and it’s very tight. We shouldn’t have the righteous view that people will want to queue up to come back to Australia because it’s just not the case anymore.”
Industry representatives say the slow response to bring skilled workers back to the country is damaging economic growth.
Estimates show more than 200,000 foreign workers in hospitality were lost to the country after the government told them to go home during the pandemic.
Restaurateur Neil Perry, who employs 90 staff at Margaret’s says staffing is his biggest challenge. He also has staffing challenges at bakery joint venture Baker Bleu and in his new bar which is set to open alongside Margaret’s and Baker Blue in October.
“The only thing keeping me awake at night is how I’m going to staff it,” Perry told The Australian. “I’m not worried about customers, I’m not worried about turnover, I’m not worried about anything. I’m just worried sick about getting staff.”
Margaret is open five of seven days a week because Perry couldn’t staff the restaurant sufficiently.
Sommeliers are also in short supply.
“Everybody’s just screaming for staff across the board, and most restaurants have had to do what I’ve done, which is close on a Monday and Tuesday,” Perry said. “If you want to go out on a Monday it’s really hard to find a place that’s open anymore.”
Cafe Sydney is open seven days a week with capped customer numbers.
“We are all at the risk of unravelling and our people are exhausted,” CEO Jan McKenzie
Cafe Sydney employs about 125 people and needs about 40 more.
“This Monday we turned over 100 reservations away because we don’t have enough staff,” McKenzie told The Australian. “We are having to cap levels at every lunch and dinner sitting because we just don’t have the manpower to look after any more people.”
Cafe Sydney was criticised recently by a customer for not having enough staff, which left McKenzie flabbergasted at the lack of understanding of the current problem.
“It’s having a major impact on us. It’s really significant.”
In places like Canada skilled migrant visas can be processed in a day. The barriers to entry in Australia need to change.
“This is an economy-wide issue and it’s undermining our ability to help to grow our economy,” Lucas said. “We are well behind the eight ball.”
However, Lucas is seeing signs that the visa approval process is speeding.
Irit Jackson - 29th September 2022
