Tourism’s visitor crisis has become a labour crisis with thousands of jobs unfilled

• Tourism lost 65,000 workers in the first year of the pandemic, and is struggling to replace them
• Migrants on working holiday visas are unlikely to arrive en masse until spring
• Staffing shortages mean slower service and shorter opening hours, and New Zealand’s reputation as a destination could suffer

After months of screaming for the border to open, tourism businesses facing a labour crisis are crying out for staff.

Thousands of vacancies and higher levels of Omicron-related staff sickness have created a big headache for tourism, which lost 65,000 workers in the first year of the pandemic and is now struggling to win back workers laid off when the border closed.

Many who landed more secure jobs in other sectors are reluctant to return to an industry that was so vulnerable to Covid-19, and now has the added challenge of geopolitical influences such as the war in Ukraine.

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Zak Ainsworth has quit tourism for good.

He loved his job as a kayak guide in the Abel Tasman National Park, but after being laid off, he initially worked in a supermarket, before taking up a landscaping apprenticeship with the long-term goal of becoming a firefighter.

“I’m 30, got a baby on the way and a mortgage, so tourism’s not the best gig for someone in my position.”

Seek and Trade Me websites are each advertising more than 2500 tourism and hospitality jobs, and Seek’s May figures for the sector were up 54% on the same period last year.

Hospitality NZ chief executive Julie White estimates accommodation and hospitality outlets alone will need to recruit between 20,000 and 30,000 staff to meet demand over peak summer season, and warns our reputation as a destination will suffer if overseas visitors receive poor service.

“If people’s expectations are not met, they tell those stories when they go home.”

Restaurant NZ’s jobs board posted 1078 jobs in May in Auckland alone, and chief executive Marisa Bidois says a national survey of 500 members showed most were struggling to recruit, and almost half had temporarily closed due to staff shortages.

Many businesses are relying on the re-entry of migrant labour and working holiday visa holders to help fill vacancies, but there are concerns other countries that opened their borders sooner, such as Australia and Canada, are hoovering up that labour source.

At the Luggate Hotel in Central Otago co-owner Rowena Bowler gave up trying to recruit a new chef last year and is putting in 60-hour weeks, while husband Rodney works days at his engineering business in nearby Wanaka, and nights behind the bar or in the hotel kitchen.

The couple’s two sons help run the pub and adjoining general store, and Rodney Bowler says they really miss access to migrant labour because New Zealanders don’t want to shift to an area where accommodation is expensive and hard to find.

Immigration New Zealand has approved 26,779 working holiday visas since mid-March, including 18,000 existing visa holders who were unable to travel when the pandemic hit, and now have until mid-September to get here.

So far 1166 working holiday-makers have flown in, but the vast majority are not expected until spring, leaving a narrow window for training before overseas tourists turn up in numbers.

Queenstown’s winter influx of skiers is already putting the pressure on, and backpacker hostel owner Brett Duncan says three workers, himself included, are looking after two 50-bed hostels that would normally require 10 workers at this time of year.

The pressure is also acute in Auckland where thousands of former managed isolation (MIQ) hotel rooms have flooded onto the market, and Hotel Council Aotearoa director James Doolan says employers offering up to $30 an hour are still struggling to recruit.

“[In MIQ] they were not cleaning the rooms daily … suddenly there are all these rooms being occupied, they need cleaning every day, and they need chefs to cook breakfasts.”

Unite Union lead hotel organiser Shanna​ Reeder​ says wages have increased a lot in recent months with some employers offering $25 for entry level positions, but pay rates are only part of the puzzle.

Some hotels do not give room attendants a rostered finish time, so parents don’t know if they can pick their children up from school.

“That’s a very basic thing employers can do to encourage people to apply for those types of roles.”

Tourism and hospitality won a 12-month concession, reducing the $27 per hour minimum pay rate for essential skills visas to $25 until April next year, and a spokesperson for Immigration Minister Kris Faafoi says that will help the sector to transition to new immigration settings.

Reeder opposes the concession, and says the industry should not get special treatment in order to be able to ship in migrant workers at discounted pay rates.

“Their pay rates should be the same as a New Zealander doing exactly the same job.

“There are many industries who have suffered over the pandemic and I don’t believe tourism and hospitality should be singled out.”