With weeks to go before Christmas, a Gold Coast nail salon is experiencing a threat to its bottom line and it's not from rising inflation.
The problem is their employees ghosting them.
Two weeks ago, five people were rostered on to work on a busy Saturday but only one staff member showed up, leaving salon owner Jason Busch in despair.
"We're over a barrel," he said.
"I think it comes back to just a little bit of courtesy and respect that, I think, is lacking in people's approaches.
"We've had people that have started with us, been with us for three or four weeks, and then just drop off the radar," he said.
In the three-and-a-half years of owning the salon, Mr Busch has seen an increasing trend of people simply not showing up for work or becoming uncontactable during the recruitment phase.
"I don't mind if someone says, 'This isn't the job for me', or 'I thought it was going to be something different', [or] 'I've found a better opportunity'.
"But you [are] just kind of left in an ether without really knowing the position of someone."
Mr Busch said finding and retaining staff was the greatest challenge his business faced.
"One of the primary issues for us, as to whether we continue on into the future, is staff," he said.
Australia-wide problem
Data released by the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) in June revealed almost a third of Australian employing businesses experienced difficulty in finding suitable staff.
ABS head of industry statistics Tom Joseph said the problem touched all levels of business.
"Large and medium-sized businesses were more likely than small businesses to have difficulties finding suitable staff," he said.
"However, nearly half [or 46 per cent] of small businesses affected were impacted to a great extent."
The data showed that recruitment was a problem for 66 per cent of large businesses and 62 per cent of medium-sized businesses.
However, for small businesses — which are defined as employing fewer than 20 employees — that figure is 29 per cent.
Survival solution
For Gold Coast health food manufacturer Seeds of Life, the solution to surviving the pandemic and lack of available staff was not found through normal recruitment channels.
Co-founder Pete Wiltshire said his business had to create a different culture by offering traineeships to school-aged students to ensure workers would turn up.
"We wouldn't have been able to survive because we just couldn't source the workers from the normal channels," Mr Wiltshire said.
"We found that we were better off to leverage from our own training because of our unique services [and] our unique products than to try to find somebody from a cookie cutter."
The company employs 28 young people and is focused on being an employer of choice to attract and retain staff.
"The old-school human resource management protocols don't work anymore," he said.
"There are a lot of businesses out there looking for people to do a job and there is the challenge: People aren't excited about just doing a job anymore."
Mandatory contracts
Community legal service, Youth Law Australia believes the answer to some of the issues being faced by small businesses lie in Australia-wide legislative change.
The service has made several recommendations to the Federal Treasury Employment Taskforce on the Employment White Paper including mandatory terms of employment contracts written and signed before an employee begins or even trials a job.
Senior solicitor Anastasia Coroneo said such contracts would better protect both employers and employees.
"So many times there's nothing in writing at the start of employment. This is just ripe for exploitation," Ms Coroneo said.
"Have it in a way of a standard form, not in a series of texts or WhatsApp messages or Facebook messages.
"That can mean all parties are much more secure."
Incentivising youth
In its submission to Treasury, Youth Law Australia has also recommended abolishing junior wages as a way of incentivising young people to work.
The report acknowledges the proposal would be unpalatable for small business owners, but Ms Coroneo says its analysis indicates the move would benefit the economy.
"The abolition of junior wages would equate to a 0.5 per cent increase in the overall wage costs borne by employers," she said.
"Granted, there will be an increase in labour costs of between 2 and 5 per cent. However, an overall increase in young people's income would lead to greater participation and circulation in the economy."
