Businesses fail as migrants locked out

Mahurangi businesses struggling for staff cannot fill vacancies despite a pool of available migrant workers desperate to earn a living.

Among the businesses is The Dome Café, which has had to shut its doors just months after reopening.

Owner Onno Ursem unexpectedly lost three of his employees because they did not meet Immigration New Zealand criteria for visa extensions.

He has advertised to replace them on multiple job sites as well as on Facebook and a physical sign, but has received no suitable applicants.

The only people who applied were either living overseas, or withdrew their application once they realised where Warkworth was.

Onno invested $200,000 to reopen the Dome Café in April and was running a successful business.

After losing his employees, he was forced to work seven days a week, in addition to his job as an engineer, to keep his business open and his remaining staff employed.

He says the worst part is that there is a pool of migrant workers in Warkworth desperate for employment, but he cannot legally hire them.

His wife is from the Kiribati community, and Onno is aware that dozens of Kiribati workers are stuck in Warkworth, unable to gain work visas and unable to return home due to closed borders.

“We’ve just had the Government apologise to overstayers for an incident that was 30 years ago. We have people from the Pacific Islands here who are struggling now.”

Susan Vize, owner of Chocolate Brown and Bayside Bistro, also has grave concerns for migrant workers. She says current visa requirements make it unnecessarily difficult for migrants to find legitimate work and puts them in a vulnerable position.

Susan recently attempted to employ a man who had left a job where he was paid in cash and denied his rights.

However, Immigration NZ would not grant the man a work visa. Susan hired a lawyer to challenge the judgment and lost. She then hired a barrister at a cost of thousands and challenged the ruling again. The second time she won.

“For four months, he was living with friends with no income and no support from the Government,” she says.

Susan has been able to retain and acquire migrant employees by hiring them as management level staff, even if their responsibility is only waiting tables.

She has required employees to be qualified as duty managers and pays them $27 an hour so that they meet requirements for an essential skills visa.

Susan says she has no problem with raising wages in the hospitality industry, but cautions that it is likely to hit the industry hard as it is already coping without tourists.

She says that formerly, wages typically consumed a third of revenue, but now it is 40 per cent.

“It won’t be long before a coffee costs $6 because of the cost to hire a barista,” she says.

Like other restaurant and café owners Mahurangi Matters spoke to, Susan has been obliged to seek out migrants because no one else is applying for jobs.

A labour shortage is causing havoc across the country in several industries due to a low unemployment rate of four per cent.

There are 1656 people in Rodney on the jobseeker’s benefit and 1140 in the Kaipara district.