Restaurateur Michael Ryan received 70 resumes for a job ad. Why the role remains empty will surprise you

Regional Victorian restaurateur Michael Ryan received 70 applications after he advertised for casual cleaners at his accommodation and dining destination in Beechworth — yet the roles remain vacant.

Ryan, who owns and operates Provenance, hedged his bets by advertising the housekeeping roles on Seek, Facebook and in other jobs boards, with above-award salaries and good work conditions as sweeteners.

Of the 70 respondents to his job ad, 50 were located outside of Australia and another 12 didn’t respond to his phone calls when he rang to organise an interview.

Six respondents didn’t show up to the paid trial shifts Ryan had organised with them, while two respondents were initially keen to join the team — but then changed their minds.

“Now at 0 applicants. We are now at the point of closing our accommodation. Tough times,” Ryan tweeted.

He’s run Provenance for 13 years, collecting two chefs hats and the Good Food Guide‘s “chef of the year” gong in 2013, while Provenance is ranked 30 on the country’s top Australian restaurants by Gourmet Traveller.

Despite the accolades, it’s always been a little bit tricky to hire staff, he tells SmartCompany, because the restaurant and accommodation is located in a regional area home to about 3000 residents.

But amid Australia’s historic labour and skills shortage, the difficulty associated with recruiting hospitality staff is now affecting Provenance’s operations.

“We’ve closed some of our accommodation availability because we just don’t have enough cleaning staff at the moment,” he said.

“We’re running the accommodation at 30-40% capacity because it’s really just my wife doing the cleaning and she’s got to run the business.”

Ryan says he welcomes the federal government’s recent announcement that skilled migration will be boosted by 35,000 from our yearly cap of 160,000, including rerouting 9000 workers into regional areas.

Of the 50 international applications Ryan received for his positions, he says the bureaucracy and red tape can make it tricky for business owners to go down the sponsorship path.

“It can be a lot of work and a lot of money so it’s never the first option, even though international staff are often very skilled and often more long-term staff,” he said.

“Getting the international skilled staff back into the country is important, and they’re staff who can teach younger staff skills as well.”

Ryan says he doesn’t expect the labour squeeze to ease any time soon and recognises he is fortunate to work in a business that can scale up and down depending on external factors, like lockdowns or staff shortages.

But he says any business owner can do something similar to preserve operations through tough times.

“It’s about looking at your business model and looking at how you can work in that new staffing environment,” he said.

Ryan, who had been in hospitality for nearly two decades, also recognises the part the industry has to play in creating a more attractive workplace to lure staff back in.

“There’s a reason some people didn’t come back to hospo after the pandemic’s lockdowns and that’s because it can be at times a pretty crappy job,” Ryan said.

For one, the expectation for staff to work extremely long hours: he’s heard stories from the industry where chefs on set salaries are clocking 70-hour weeks.

Thankfully, however, “it’s happening less and less, people just won’t accept it anymore”.

“Long term we need to look at training staff better, and we’ve got to show workers the attractive and positive parts of hospitality.”