More employees needed: Katunga Fresh boss Peter Van den Goor overlooking the vines inside one of the glass-houses.
Photo by
Geoff Adams
Large Goulburn Valley employers are struggling to recruit staff, causing losses in productivity and confidence with a major fresh produce grower shelving a $200 million expansion due to the shortage of willing workers.
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Katunga Fresh in Katunga normally produces 12 million kilograms of tomatoes annually for major supermarkets nationally, but owner Peter Van den Goor said planting could be halved for 2022.
“Normally we employ 150 people, and we are probably 20 to 30 short at the moment,” he said.
“We had plans to do things next year, but we can’t get the workers.”
Workers wanted: Inside the Katunga Fresh glasshouses.
Photo by
Geoff Adams
Planting has already been delayed by four weeks, and if workers from overseas are not encouraged now that international borders are open, it’s likely half the glasshouses will be left empty.
That equates to a $17.5 million hit to production, which the company said would have a ripple effect through local contractors and suppliers.
Mr Van den Goor said he had been talking to government and seeking assistance but had no confidence the labour market would turn around during the next year.
Of 50 locals employed over the past three months 80 per cent haven’t lasted, and some didn’t make it through a week.
“The labour shortage will stop everything now; we normally never advertise for our staff, we never had a shortage,” Mr Van den Goor said.
SPC people and culture general manager Robert Tanti said applications for seasonal work at the factory were well down on past years.
Fewer takers: Applications to work at SPC over the harvest period are well down on the usual volume.
Photo by
Megan Fisher
“December through to April is SPC’s busiest period; we receive and process harvested fruits including peaches, apricots, apples, pears and tomatoes from local producers,” he said.
“We need an additional 500 casual staff during the period. But, over the last six weeks, we have received only 590 applications, 310 fewer than the same time last year.
“On average, only 30 per cent of all applicants are offered work at SPC.”
Mr Tanti said border closures and limits on overseas support due to the COVID-19 pandemic had certainly highlighted the lack of available local workers to undertake work.
“It is critical to our business and the region that our primary producers secure talent that can be trained or have sufficient skills to harvest and process fruit,” he said.
“Government funding is necessary to attract, skill, reskill and shore up regional labour supply to match demand. This is a problem we share with both our partner farmers and the broader region.”
Mooroopna-based Gouge Linen and Garment Services has only been able to recruit half of the 60 new employees needed to service a major new contract.
Chief executive John Calleja said finding operators was the most difficult task, but highly skilled administrative roles, truck drivers and production mangers were also difficult to recruit.
“We have changed our production supervision structure to give staff more of an opportunity to advance along a career path,” he said.
“It is incredibly difficult at the moment.”
Other factories are having to cut shifts to match their available staff, which impacts on productivity.
Australia’s borders reopened to international students and eligible visa holders, including skilled migrants, on Wednesday but it will be some time before numbers reach pre-pandemic levels.
