Mental health fears amid layoffs
Mental health fears emerge as the coronavirus devastates job prospects for tourism workers, writes Amanda Cropp.
Auckland travel agent Claire Jones, who has clocked up more than 20 years in the industry, cried her eyes out for days after learning she would lose her job. ‘‘Travel is all I know. I’m struggling with the fact that I have to find a new career,’’ she said.
‘‘There are hundreds of us walking away [from travel].’’
Aged 50, she discovered she was vying with up to 245 applicants for customer service jobs. ‘‘It’s quite disheartening.’’
Motivated by the fact that she is ‘‘skint’’, paying $500 a week in rent, and waiting to hear if she is entitled to $490 in the hand from the Covid-19 income relief payment, Jones is not fussy.
‘‘I’ll do supermarket work or cleaning if I have to.’’
She even spent a couple of days labouring on a demolition site for a friend. ‘‘I was sore for days.’’
Every week brings news of hotel chains, wellknown tourist attractions, and smaller operators cutting back or shutting their doors.
Tourism Minister Kelvin Davis does not know how many tourism jobs have been lost to coronavirus, arguing that it’s difficult to gauge because those affected range from airline pilots to Uber drivers.
At least 100,000 jobs could be lost, according to Tourism Industry Aotearoa chief executive Chris Roberts, and he first raised the mental health issue with the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment back in February when the border closure with China began to bite.
‘‘[There are] potential mental health implications for anyone affected by this – business owners, staff and those here on work visas losing their jobs and not able to support themselves.
‘‘They are thousands of miles from home so the mental strain has to be significant.’’
Close to 1600 job-seekers have registered with the Go with Tourism website, aimed at helping redundant tourism workers. More than half of them had been laid off as a result of Covid-19.
Website director Matt Stenton said it had so far referred five suicidal clients to crisis teams, and was making fortnightly calls to 70 people considered ‘‘high risk’’ because of concerns about their health and welfare.
He expected another major wave of redundancies when the extended wage subsidy came to an end. ‘‘That’s what I’m concerned about, we’re not prepared for that.’’
EAPworks has noticed a spike in demand for its business support services, with 60 counselling referrals in just two days last week.
General manager Jonathan Dixon spent eight years working in hotels, and he said some tourism businesses had been in the same families for generations, so finding a new career was very hard.
‘‘Planned change is one thing, forced change is another.
‘‘It’s a crisis within a crisis because, not only have we been in lockdown and had to change how we live and what our ‘new normal’ is, we’ve lost our job and now we have to change career path as well.’’
Uncertainty about the future compounded the trauma for those made redundant, Dixon said.
‘‘If we change our career, what’s a safe career right now?’’
Not everyone is willing to accept positions with less status and lower pay.
Stenton said some tourism workers had unrealistic expectations that a trans-Tasman bubble would magically restore their jobs.
They were hoping something better would come along, refusing to consider work in call centres, security, factories, forestry and farming. ‘‘They didn’t like the pay or the hours.’’
A middle-aged pilot, who initially turned down bus driving and supermarket jobs, later changed his mind after learning that stacking supermarket shelves on the nightshift paid more than Jobseeker Support.
Stenton’s advice is to be realistic and open-minded; consider any opportunity, retrain, up-skill and be prepared to take a ‘‘side step’’ on the career ladder.
‘‘It’s a hard sell . . . I’d like people to think about what they need to do to survive the next 12 months.’’ T
he Hermitage Hotel in Aoraki Mt Cook National Park occupies one of the most scenic spots in the country, but the gloss has rather gone off the location for about 150 soon-to-be-jobless workers.
They have to move out of staff accommodation by July 11 and some are shifting to a campground at nearby Twizel.
Single and mobile, Hermitage front-of-house manager Sanjay Kumar is considering retraining in IT, partly because he was so unhappy with the redundancy process.
‘‘I was devastated by the way these guys handled it. It tarnished the passion I had for the tourism industry.’’
Kumar has applied for more than 100 jobs, and said it had been a tough time.
‘‘We’re in an isolated environment in a national park, there’s nothing here, and being locked down for seven or eight weeks was mentally frustrating.’’
Hotel staffer Vicki Purcell said The Hermitage and associated accommodation in Mt Cook Village employed 40 different nationalities, and the remoteness created additional challenges for migrant workers for whom English was a second language.
Some didn’t own vehicles and there was no public transport. Lack of access to wi-fi and printers made it difficult to prepare job applications.
‘‘How do you apply for jobs on your phone when you have to do a cover letter?’’
Migrant workers wanting to permanently change jobs must apply to Immigration New Zealand for a new visa or a variation of conditions.
Immigration said most variations were being decided within a month, with health and dairy sectors getting priority.
Canadian rafting guide Dylan Card is unable to accept any of the three jobs he has been offered (pest control, fencing, building log cabins) without the nod from Immigration, and he has no idea how long that will take.
He has spent the past three summers working for Rangitata Rafts and has survived on savings since his contract ended a couple of weeks ago.
Immigration has urged all temporary visa holders without jobs to go home, but given the cost and difficulty of returning to Canada, and the fact that Card’s Spanish girlfriend has a longer-term visa, he is keen to stay.
‘‘I get that they are trying to look after New Zealand citizens and give them priority with work, but with a country this small there’s probably enough work to go around.’’
The Government has come under pressure to make emergency welfare benefits available to migrant workers stranded here, but Card does not want charity.
‘‘I wouldn’t feel comfortable taking the money, I’d rather work and put money back into the economy.’’
Roberts is frustrated at the Government’s seeming reluctance to address the plight of migrant workers like Card, pointing out the recent Covid-19 income relief payment for workers made
‘‘There’s very little chance anyone is going to move from a city to remove wilding pines or clear tracks.’’
Chris Roberts
Tourism Industry Aotearoa chief executive
redundant specifically excluded temporary migrants who lost their jobs.
The Budget set aside $1.1 billion to create 11,000 environment jobs in the regions doing pest and weed control, and Tourism Holdings chief executive Grant Webster hopes laid-off Waitomo Cave tour guides can find work locally with the Department of Conservation.
However, it is unclear how many redundant tourism workers would be physically capable or willing to take on outdoor work in mid winter.
‘‘There’s very little chance anyone is going to move from a city to remove wilding pines or clear tracks,’’ Roberts said.
‘‘Such opportunities will be more suited to those who are living in those regions and wish to stay there.’’
The dairy industry is also short of at least 1000 workers for the next year, a situation exacerbated by the number of migrant workers trapped overseas by border closures after returning home on holiday.
Immigration and recruitment specialists The Regions is trying to fill 400 dairy farm vacancies and managing director Ben De’Ath is snapping up former tourism workers.
Most of the dozen he has hired to date have some link to farming.
They include four men from a Queenstown restaurant and a helicopter pilot who had never milked a cow.
He is also talking to six Brits at a Queenstown rental car company, two of whom have experience driving tractors.
‘‘Even if we can get them onto farms for the calving and breeding season, that would be an absolute god-send,’’ De’Ath said.
Some Southland farmers have even offered to play chauffeur and collect new recruits who lack vehicles.
‘‘They would be welcomed with open arms.’’ But De’Ath said asking redundant city folk to give rural life a go was more problematic.
It was a big upheaval for someone to move their entire family away from schools and friends in suburbia to take on a job they have ‘‘no affinity with’’.
Infometrics economist Brad Olsen believes it is better to focus on the people skills tourism workers have, provide some retraining, and encourage them into areas such as doing customer service for the tech sector.
‘‘We don’t want to yank them out of the labour force for too long.’’
Olsen said the sharp reversal of fortunes for tourism also meant it was risky to stake too much on opening borders with Australia.
‘‘The brutal reality is we won’t have everyone currently in a tourism-based role back in a tourism role in the next five to 10 years.’’