Shirley Johnston and her husband Gil moved to the Goldfields more than 45 years ago to run one of the region's oldest pubs — Flanagan's Bar.
Over four decades, the couple has managed the ups and downs of running a small business in the boom-and-bust mining town of Kalgoorlie-Boulder, but no issues have been as long-lasting as the loss of their workforce following the onset of COVID-19.
In 2020, all the couple's staff, two full-time workers and several casuals left the bar after the federal government advised backpackers and international students to return home.
"We had the two barmaids, an Irish and English girl who had to go. We just had to close and waited to see what happened," Ms Johnston said.
At the height of the pandemic, the business stayed afloat by selling takeaway liquor direct from the cellar door, but the 140-year-old pub has not pulled a pint or served a parmie since closing its doors in 2020.
"We were forced to close without any knowledge of it, and we closed overnight — that was it," Ms Johnston said.
"We were allowed to have that [the cellar door] open if we had a mask on, and they had masks on, so that was open, but all the pubs were closed from that day."
Between 2020 and 2021, international migration to Australia fell by 88,800, the greatest decline since the end of World War II, with WA the third-most impacted state.
Two years later, easing restrictions have seen hospitality venues across the city reopen, but not Flanagan's, which the Johnstons say relies on international workers for its staff.
"We can't find any local staff. They all want to go to the mines," Mr Johnston said.
Relief still months away
Australian Hotels Association WA chief executive Bradley Woods said international students and other short-term workers were critical for the tourism and hospitality industry, particularly in rural areas.
"It's everything from front of house, food, beverage, accommodation services, through to back of house, kitchen … but also semi-skilled positions, such as cooks and supervisory and management roles," he said.
He said WA had felt the impact of the worker shortage more acutely than other states due to the delay in reopening its borders, but the issue was Australia-wide.
"As of around six weeks ago, there were over a million visas that were in the backlog to be processed by immigration," Mr Woods said.
The backlog was one of the issues addressed at the government's jobs summit held in Canberra last month, with the government offering to provide more staff to speed up the processing of visas.
Mr Woods said it would still take time before the hospitality sector returned to its pre-pandemic levels.
"It could take anywhere from another year to another 18 months, and we've currently got around 10,000 positions that are currently vacant," he said.
While bringing in more workers is high on the government's priority list, other measures are being implemented to get the most out of workers once in the country.
Visas changed to keep workers
Curtin University's global public health professor Jaya Dantas said changes had been made to the duration of "holiday-tourist visas" to help fill the gap created by the 2020 exodus.
She said people coming into the country on a work holiday visa could now stay two years, not one, while the hourly cap placed on student visas had been removed.
But, how the changes are implemented would determine how soon workers could return.
"At present, it's a hit and miss. It can take weeks or months, even in the student visa category," Dr Dantas said.
"What we'll have to see is what happens in the next six months, how effective we are in meeting the need across the country and in Western Australia."
On Thursday, Immigration Minister Andrew Giles said the government had committed an additional $36.1 million to hire 500 staff to help process the backlog.
He said since June, more than two million visa applications had been processed, including 1.35 million visitor, student and temporary skilled visa applications, bringing the backlog to about 880,000.
