r/australia • u/Rubiginous • 11h ago

politics Hospitality industry warns of critical workers shortages as migration cuts loom

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2026-10-14/hospitality-industry-warns-shortages-migrant-workers/107266454
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u/enigmasaurus- 8h ago

I think immigration has a huge number of social and cultural benefits and I do love living in such a diverse country... but I always find it a bit frustrating in these debates that industries seem to conveniently forget migrants also need services and generate demand. 

If we grow the population more quickly, the hospitality industry does not "meet its worker needs" because those needs are not static and just expand to accommodate more people, meaning we never fill those shortages. Is there a single skills shortage we've ever addressed with immigration? Ever even improved? No, because more workers means more demand for more services, then we need even more workers and on it goes. It's not a magical solution. 

We need to get out of this endless growth mindset so we can stop deluding ourselves into thinking it can fix our workforce shortages simply by adding more people. Were should instead be investing more in training the people we have. Also, the hospitality industry pays absolute peanuts, have they considered that's the real problem?