Work visas ‘too little, too late’
Hospitality businesses say there still aren’t enough visitors on working holiday visas to plug gaps in the workforce, despite a temporary doubling of numbers under the Working Holiday Scheme.
Staff shortages meant many businesses in Nelson were too busy to attend a recruitment expo last week aimed at alleviating the problem for local hospitality, accommodation and tourism companies, organisers said.
The Government announced in August it would lift the cap on working holiday visas for the 2022/2023 season. But delays in processing visa applications have been reported in a system creaking under heavy demand. Nelson Hospitality Association president Ian Williams said the changes were ‘‘too little too late’’ for sector businesses being sold or operating with reduced opening hours as they tried to repay debt accrued during Covid.
‘‘We are already into the [summer] season and we don’t have enough staff. So whatever is going on in the system is not happening fast enough,’’ the owner of The Vic Public House and Burger Culture said. Williams echoed calls from businesses elsewhere for the cost of migrant visas to be lowered, for the process to be streamlined, and for visa holders to be allowed to stay longer. As the sector struggled to find staff, some job seekers were trying to capitalise on the situation. Nelson Tasman Chamber of Commerce chief executive Ali Boswijk said people had arrived from places like Queenstown, demanding higher pay than many businesses could afford. Williams said he had heard of job-seekers also demanding unreasonable conditions. ‘‘They come in with a series of terms that says I will only work one of the weekend days, and I will only work so many evenings of the week.
‘‘This is hospitality . . . it is an evening and weekend industry.’’
Hospitality NZ regional manager Zinnia Foster said about 200 people attended a recruitment expo in Nelson on Monday last week, aimed at helping the sector tackle staff shortages.
They included Ministry of Social Development job seekers, international students, backpackers, school students looking for summer jobs and a group of migrants accompanied by the Red Cross. The Rutherford Hotel received 80 job applications as a result of the expo – a collaboration between Hospitality NZ, Go With Tourism, the Ministry of Social Development and Connected.govt. nz, with support from Uniquely Nelson and Nelson City Council, Foster said.
The expo was due to become an annual event – helping businesses by offering work to people already in the region, Foster said.
‘‘Hospitality businesses continue to feel frustrated with the immigration settings, while Immigration NZ is reporting higher processing of applications.’’
Immigration Minister Michael Wood said in October the Government was rebalancing immigration settings to address immediate skills shortages, focusing on building the skills New Zealand needed, rather than on large volumes of low wage labour.