For the charming beachside fish and chip shack, this was the moment the manager had been waiting for. One brief window of four, maybe five weeks in which to make that one financial killing of the year: a captive market of hot, hungry visitors queued at the window, flake ready for batter, chips ready to fry.
The days were hot, damn hot, and the hordes descended on the small business staffed by a casual summertime staff of students and young people, fly-by-nighters and travellers. The trouble was the manager had not counted on the combined effect of hot days, a small space, many fryers and not quite enough air-conditioning. The young staff became angry, saying the working conditions were unbearable: they downed frying baskets and walked out en masse. The manager pleaded for their return, promising better working conditions, but they didn’t come back.
It’s a true story. This happened while I was on holidays this summer, and the place certainly hadn’t managed to re-open while we were still there. It may not have since. We’ve all worked our fair share of crappy jobs, and I can imagine just how awful that environment would have been for the kids, but the two sides of this story – poor conditions on the one hand, and a workforce that feels it can pick and choose its jobs with ease on the other – tells a large part of the complex workforce story that is set to become a pivotal chapter in this country’s economic narrative.
In some sectors, we simply don’t have enough workers, such as hospitality and mining. In other areas, such as the desperately struggling retail sector, many employees will even now be unaware that they are confronting layoffs and closures. Potential unemployment now attends the lives of many Australians, but paradoxically they are not the same Australians who are so keenly needed elsewhere.
Looming unemployment is the elephant about to enter the room, and few have anticipated the effects of this unexpected and smelly gatecrasher.
One leading retailer told me that, far from employing the several hundred casual Christmas staff they routinely take on, this year not one more person was enlisted. Existing staff were already asking for more hours, and there were none to be had: these people had to be protected and maintained, but the retailer just couldn’t see how they all will be.
A major figure in Australia’s hospitality trade has a very different perspective, and it’s a tough one. “I want to see some more unemployment in this country: that way people will have to fight a little harder to get a job, and they’ll work harder on their skills.” This person – who has seen it all – is staggered at the mediocrity of talent on display, the lack of application, the tendency to chuck it all in when it gets too hard. Call it the MasterChef phenomenon: you want me to chop that? Sorry – I took this job to become a celebrity!
Last week the Transport and Tourism Forum chief executive, John Lee, said the only answer to a chronic shortage of staff was to allow the importation of tens of thousands of bartenders, chefs and wait staff, a move the federal government is now planning. “We would love to employ locals,” Lee said, “but unfortunately they just don’t want to get out there and clean toilets and serve people because they think that is all beneath them.”
I can hear the howls of outrage now: from parents who don’t want to see their children exploited; from workers who can’t see why they should waste their one shot at life on jobs that aren’t good enough. And both arguments have a great impact. But so does the dole queue. In the absence of significant economic growth largely created by forces beyond our control, which argument will win?
Virginia Trioli is the presenter of ABC News Breakfast on ABC1 and ABC News 24, 6-9am weekdays.
Follow Virginia on Twitter @latrioli