Staff shortage creates Sydney catering crisis
There’s a big problem now hitting key Sydney events – they can’t get skilled staff to do the basics. Like serving a meal or pouring a beer.
One example is the situation now confronting Delaware North Australia, the company that supplies staff at the Sydney Cricket Ground and Allianz Stadium.
During the recent Sydney-North Melbourne and Waratahs-Chiefs double-header, they hired 65 extra staff on the day and still were left with 45 vacant shifts,
The problem was there during the opening of the Vivid festival. It’s the same story during big race days, the Royal Easter Show and the summer cricket tests. At the same time, city bars are complaining about the staff shortage.
All of this is despite the fact that the standard casual rate is $21.87 an hour and up to $55 on public holidays.
Company Food & Beverage Stadia general manager Sharon Arrow said what makes it worse is that existing staff don’t have the skills to do the job.
“Simple things like getting food on a plate, pouring a beer and carrying a tray,’’ Ms Arrow told the Herald Sun.
“We have staff turn up with barista courses unable to cope under pressure who we have to pull off the job if they haven’t disappeared into the toilets and not come back.
“There is training available but it’s not real. We want to be able to train staff in the venues.
“I feel that if we could train people up and release them back into the industry, everyone would benefit.”
She said staff were coming along to a barista training course and then cracking when they were put under the pressure to operate coffee machine.
Catering bosses are now calling on the government to help fund the training of staff for venues, giving them real life experience in multi-tasking and picking up valuable skills.
by Leon Gettler, June 20th 2016
