Employers look to package housing

Farmers across the region are increasingly considering the potential accommodation packages have to attract skilled workers to their businesses as regional housing shortages bite.

Warracknabeal’s Northwest Real Estate director John Hadley said January was often a busy period for businesses seeking to hire staff, and he had met with several farmers in recent weeks who were considering purchasing and renting property to lure new workers and their families to the region.

He said it was a common concept for farmers to offer accommodationwage packages across Australia’s agricultural industry, but believed the practice was becoming more frequent as employee accommodation expectations changed and as new employees considered the region’s housing shortage an obstacle to employment.

“There has always been a steady demand for houses in this region and this year there seems to be more demand than usual,” he said.

Mr Hadley said housing packages were becoming an attractive option for all regional businesses seeking employees.

He said businesses were increasingly considering housing packages to attract, in particular, middle and seniormanagement level workers.

“We even considered going down the housing route ourselves. We believed it might have been an option for us when we were seeking agency staff,” he said.

“I have had three or four meetings in recent weeks with different farmers looking at purchasing homes for potential staff.”

Mr Hadley said in previous eras, farmers could offer a bungalow or old farmhouse to their workers, while farm hands would often sleep ‘wherever they could’.

But he said as businesses sought more highly-skilled staff who would often relocate to the region with their family, farmers recognised they needed to offer a ‘better’ standard of accommodation.

Wimmera farmer David Jochinke said providing accommodation packages for farm staff was ‘not a new concept’, however it had become more popular in recent years.

“Farmers are trying to remain the long-term employer of choice for farm workers who are usually jack-of-alltrades people,” he said.

“Agriculture has always been a traditional employee hunting ground for other sectors, and in a very competitive market, farmers were after ways to retain staff.”

Mr Jochinke, the former chair of Wimmera Southern Mallee Regional Partnership, said increased necessity of employee housing packages across the region’s farms had only further highlighted the region’s housing shortages.

“This does put a spotlight on a problem that is already here – that housing stock across a lot of Australia, not just the Wimmera, is in need of replenishment,” he said.

“What we need to do is continue to highlight, to all levels of government, the issues we are facing.

“Whether that is talking with councils about planning process, talking with State Government about funding allocations for affordable-housing schemes, or talking with the Federal Government about building the infrastructure around communities that will enable them to thrive.”