Australia: Donuts, tote bags and petrol vouchers: companies offer sweeteners to lure workers into airport jobs

There were cupcakes, doughnuts and $500 petrol vouchers on offer, as well as promises of free training. On Thursday, thousands of job seekers descended on Sydney’s Kingsford Smith airport for a jobs fair, to hear about vacancies that baggage handling, catering, retail and security companies – as well as major airlines and government departments such as Border Force and the federal police – were looking to fill. More than 30,000 people were employed at the airport before Covid, but 15,000 jobs are estimated to have been lost throughout the pandemic, said Geoff Culbert, the airport’s chief executive. Culbert said despite the promising turnout to the job fair, where more than 40 businesses had set up stalls, long queues and travel disruptions resulting from staff shortages will continue to plague the airport. “I think that every additional employee that we can add at the airport is going to help with congestion, but the reality is these shortages are going to be with us for a while longer,” he said. “This is the tightest labour market that we’ve seen in 40 years. We’ve got 5,000 jobs that we need to fill and that’s going to take time,” he said. While many of those who turned out on Thursday were school leavers and unemployed people looking to enter the industry, printed CVs in hand, a large proportion of those attending were people employed in other sectors hoping for a career change as well as former aviation workers let go during the pandemic.<br/>