AEC looks to recruit more than 100,000 workers for election day amid Australia-wide staff shortages

‘We become one of the nation’s largest employers, but only for effectively a day,’ says Evan Ekin-Smyth of the Australian Electoral Commission. Photograph: Mick Tsikas/AAP

Staff shortages bedevilling everything from restaurants to hospitals could extend to the Australian Electoral Commission as it battles to fill more than 100,000 short-term positions in what will be the country’s most expensive federal election.

With Australia’s jobless rate at its lowest level since the 1970s, the Australian Electoral Commission (AEC) is competing with other employers to recruit an army to manage voting across about 7,500 polling places in an election made more complex because of the Covid pandemic.