'It's acute ... across the board': Why everyone is short-staffed right now
'It's acute ... across the board': Why everyone is short-staffed right now
Employee shortages are leaving many industries stretched thin. How is this going to play out? We talk to an expert...
It’s Tuesday, June 21: Kia ora, haere mai and welcome to Stocktake, The Spinoff’s brand new business newsletter, written by me, Chris Schulz, and brought to you in partnership with Kiwibank. It’s issue number one, and I’m excited! Thank you for being here, and thank you for reading. A quick reminder: this is a business newsletter for people who don’t really think they like “business”. It’s going to be fun, promise.
I went to my first music festival in two-and-a-half years over the weekend, and it felt strange and familiar all at the same time. It rained, it was cold, and it wasn’t exactly crowded, but, for me, it felt like the first step towards whatever our new normal is going to look like. We’re all working out what that is right now, and as you’ll see below, some businesses are figuring out what that is on a day-to-day basis.
(Don’t forget to read to the end to see my 19-year-old cat being introduced to her very first robot — and to win a year’s supply of Fix & Fogg peanut butter.)
Where have all the staff gone?
We just wanted a burger and a beer. On a recent weekend, a mate and I arranged to see Top Gun: Maverick. We met in New Lynn, Auckland, then tried to get a quick bite to eat. The first place we tried was packed out with some kind of quiz night. After 10 minutes, a single waitperson was yet to appear, so we shrugged our shoulders and moved on. At the second, a bistro, we were stopped at the doorway and told: “We don’t have enough staff to serve you.”
Again, we moved on. Finally, after wandering around for a bit, we attempted to dine at a third venue, only to be warned only one staff member was available to serve us, and just one more was working in the kitchen. That’s two people running an entire restaurant. Food would be a minimum half-hour wait. We grabbed a beer, sat down, and passed the time. Luckily, we’d arrived early, and we had catching up to do.
But it didn’t end there. Later on, up at the movie theatre, things were just as chaotic. Ice cream was sold out, and there were no ushers on doors to clip tickets. It was bedlam, a free-for-all, and I’m sure some were taking advantage and heading into theatres to watch Top Gun for free.
Staff, it seems, are in short supply right now. This post-pandemic phenomenon has been covered in bits and pieces, with Queenstown cleaning operations struggling for staff, and kiwifruit pickers being offered $60 an hour. One New Plymouth trucking company offers dinner, a Netflix subscription, and a $2,000 bonus to drivers who stick around. Anecdotally, I’ve heard of newsrooms struggling to retain staff, even springing surprise bonuses for the remainder in an effort to persuade them to stay.
Then there are these kinds of signs popping up on the doors of eateries all over Auckland. This pic was snapped at a popular Japanese restaurant near The Spinoff’s Morningside office…
What’s going on? “There’s a massive shortage of people to fill jobs at the moment,” says Alan Donald. The head of advocacy and strategy for the Employers and Manufacturers Association has first-hand experience of this. On a recent weekend in Whangamatā, he ordered a beer at a local bar. There, the Auckland-based barman admitted he was driving down every weekend to pour pints to help out his mate who couldn’t find staff. The local fishing club was closed due to lack of staff, and the bakery around the corner was open just one day a week. You guessed it: they couldn’t find workers. “They just aren’t there. This is across the board, all skill levels, all sorts of sectors [and] all over the place: the regions, the cities,” says Donald.
The EMA recently conducted a survey of members and found 40% of them had been advertising for more than six months to try and find people. To cope with this, strange things are happening: you can get well over minimum wage for jobs previously considered entry level. In Queenstown, they’re offering $30 an hour for cleaning hotel rooms. In the Bay of Plenty, you can get $60 an hour to pick kiwifruit. “They’re losing people out of their packhouses because they’re going to pick fruit,” says Donald. “It’s acute … you can’t find a truck driver, you can’t find an aged care worker anywhere, they’re 6,500 people short down in the Bay to pick crops this year. We’re hearing of manufacturers who can’t find people.”
Why is it like this? Things were already heading in this direction before the pandemic, Donald says, but Covid made it much worse. With closed borders, immigrants are no longer plugging the gaps. Other countries, especially Canada and Australia, are actively recruiting, plucking people out of our immigration queues. Add in the pent-up demand from people wanting to do their OE, and it’s a problem spiralling out of control. “You can’t grow your business if you can’t find people,” says Donald.
It may not get easier any time soon. In fact, this could last several years. If that’s the case, Donald advises companies to do whatever they can to hold onto experienced staff. Offer incentives, like bonuses, promotions or additional skill training, and have succession plans in place. “If you upskill your people they tend to be more loyal, and they’re more productive,” he says. But that takes time. “To train an apprentice takes three years. It’s another couple of years until they’re at maximum productivity.”
If you’re employed and you’ve got itchy feet, you might think now is the perfect time to ask for a promotion, or a pay rise. When staff are in such short supply, Donald agrees it probably is. But he cautions that the escalating costs of running a business may put some at risk. Add in the staffing crisis, and some may not be able to survive. “One part of me says yes, you’ll probably get a pay rise if you ask for one,” he says. “The other [part] says it’s bloody hard on employers who are struggling. We say this often: it’s never been harder for business.”
So settle in, because it’s going to be like this for a while. “Staff are really burnt out,” says a Christchurch restaurant manager in this recent Spinoff story about hospitality vibes right now. I’ve seen this in action too. Over a recent weekend, my wife and I tried to book Ada, a much-hyped Grey Lynn restaurant, for a birthday dinner. We spent several days emailing, and phoning, but our queries got us nowhere. After the weekend, they finally emailed us back. “Sorry about that,” they said. “We’re short-staffed.”
Stocktake is brought to you in partnership with Kiwibank – the bank for Kiwi looking to get ahead in business and in life: Kiwibank delivers expertise in banking know-how, smart advice for business owners wanting to invest in, grow their business or diversify. A bank that adapts with technology through the lens of its people and customers. It is a bank with heart, that is driven by its purpose – Kiwi making Kiwi better off. Kiwibank is inspired by the modern, diverse, game-changing, passionate Kiwi who give their all. They’re proud to be the bank that shares the name and backs more than a million Kiwi in everything they do. This is Kiwi.
The headlines you need to know about…
You can’t open a news site right now without reading about Elon Musk, the Tesla and SpaceX owner who may or may not be set to take over Twitter. Staff there should be worried, according to this New York Times report about several SpaceX staff who lost their jobs after penning an open letter about the antics of their outspoken boss.
Everyone’s predicting the death of cinema, but one local chain is bucking those trends. Silky Otter has done so by heading to the ‘burbs, opening in Auckland’s Ōrākei, Christchurch’s Wigram and Richmond, near Nelson. Next up is Ponsonby, Takanini and Queenstown. I really enjoyed talking to CEO Neil Lambert, who admits he needed a “little bit of crazy” to survive and thrive the past two years.
Twenty-seven years! That’s a long time in the constantly changing interweb world. Sadly, the often hated-on browser Internet Explorer has been taken offline. Why now? Here’s an explainer about its rise, and fall, and what you should be using if you were silly enough to be sticking with it until now.
I hadn’t heard of Kami until I read this fascinating piece from Reweti Kohere, who examines the local education technology platform’s phenomenal pandemic-fuelled growth. It’s New Zealand’s fastest-growing business, and it has one critical decision to thank for that.
My favourite celeb TV chef, Ganesh Raj, is having a rough time, closing his Auckland eatery The Tasting Shed and laying the blame on Covid. It’s the latest in a long line of restaurant closures, especially in Auckland, but if anyone can bounce back, it’s Ganesh, who comes across as a lively TV presence. Give me a call, Ganesh, I’ll happily shout you a beer or two.
The story we’ve been diving into…
For the past four months, as part of a series produced in partnership with BMW, Don Rowe has been driving around Aotearoa, gathering stories from around the country, checking in with everyone from Far North iwi to Gisborne banana growers and a Raglan surf icon. It’s been a profound experience for him, and a delightful series to read, and Don says it’s reaffirmed his love for the country. “Everyone I met on the road restored my faith in our collective worth at this particular point in time,” says Don. “Far from the ugly scenes on parliament’s grounds, Aotearoa is still a fundamentally good place full of good people, doing what they can to make life a little bit better for each other – giving away food, caring for the land, searching for ways to prepare for a rapidly changing world.” You can read his final piece here.
Sign up to Stocktake and go in the draw to win one of three prize packs from one of our favourite business success stories, Fix & Fogg. Two subscribers will receive a six-month supply and one lucky winner a full year’s supply of Fix & Fogg’s delicious nut butters.
The podcast we’ve been listening to…
I’ve interviewed Leigh Hart several times, and he’s always in character, always playing things for laughs, and always roping in those around him to be in his TV shows. It’s why he’s considered a TV comedy genius. So it was strange to hear Hart being himself when he spoke to Duncan Greive on the latest episode of The Fold. He was there to discuss his pivot to building a Wakachangi and Snackachangi empire, including a chip we rated as the greatest New Zealand has produced. Hart admits he’s surprisingly serious about his business dreams, and a lot of thought has gone into the end product. “It’s still got to be legitimate great-tasting, it’s got to be in a proper packet,” he says. “You can’t half-ass that.” Listen to Duncan’s full interview with Leigh here.
Finally, here’s something we’ve been toying with…
This is Smitten, a 19-year-old cat, born at a time when Facebook and Twitter didn’t exist. And this is Yiko, a newborn robot vacuum cleaner who’s been cleaning the floors in our tiny Te Atatū home for the past few weeks. It’s been doing a pretty good job, picking up cat hair and dirt leftover from the kids’ football boots, while polishing the floors, emptying its own trash, and even self-cleaning. Just 3% of Aotearoa homes have a robot vacuum cleaner, but this is changing – Ecovacs, which makes Deebot cleaners like Yiko, says they’re increasingly popular, especially for those in apartments and townhouses. We’ve had one problem: Yiko’s voice commands occasionally interrupt our conversations with random concerns and requests. I put this to Ecovacs, which confirmed no private conversations were being recorded or stored. Phew. So, Yuki’s staying put for now, especially as it recognises our deaf cat sleeping on the floor and can clean our carpets without waking her up. (Ecovacs’ Deebot X1 Omni, RRP$2,999)
That’s all from Stocktake this week. Enjoy the long weekend, and see you next Tuesday!