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/Gazza_s_89 11h ago edited 11h ago

My unpopular opinion is that the hospitality sector is too large anyway.

Our towns and cities are full of struggling coffee shops selling low value add items, owned by unimaginative entrepreneurs.

Now owners are complaining that nobody wants to pay $12 for toasties and nobody wants to commute 1h to a minimum wage job.

Or IDK maybe the sector could be larger.... but it'd very susceptible to consumer spending being crowded out by the cost of housing.

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u/visualdescript 9h ago

They're struggling because the ever growing wealth divide is pricing the middle and lower class out of actually spending money on eating out.

Historically there have always been a lot of hospitality places, and by historically I mean, throughout all of history. Shit even small towns used to have 3 pubs open and doing well.

Everything other than focusing on how we can stop and reduce the wealth divide is a distraction. The wealth of the mega rich needs to be redistributed among the masses.

Sadly AI, like most tech, is just accelerating the divide.

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u/Gazza_s_89 9h ago

But it's not just 3 pubs, it's 3 pubs, the RSL, the bowlo, servos selling food, a branch of every fast food chain, plus stuff that wasn't around when it was a 3 pub town (Thai, Chinese takeaway, some place selling acai,.....endless coffee shops )

The sector became artificially large because wage suppression made it easy to grow.

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u/thudface 8h ago

You’re not wrong, my home town on the NSW south coast is a prime example of this. 50,000ish people, 3 maccas, a Burger King, 2 kfc’s, Taco Bell, 4-5 struggling pubs, 4 rsl’s, 3 bowlo’s and all the cafes you can shake a stick at. And that’s the main town, the surrounding smaller country and beach towns have the same problem, restaurants literally pop up for the holiday season and go bankrupt 3months after peak holiday.
I used to be a chef in some decent places and writing was on the wall back then. The sector is overwhelmingly saturated with garbage and other over priced garbage.

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u/broadsword_1 4h ago

restaurants literally pop up for the holiday season and go bankrupt 3months after peak holiday.

It's amazing that places still fall into that trap.