Hospitality never got its workforce back. The people who left during the closures largely did not return to the industry, and the sector rebuilt on a thinner base with heavier reliance on visa holders whose availability moves with policy rather than with demand. Venues are competing for a smaller pool than they were competing for before, and doing it at short notice.

That short notice is the second problem. Operational businesses hire under time pressure, because a shift needs covering or a line needs running, and pressure pushes you toward whoever is available rather than whoever is right. The cost shows up later as turnover, and turnover in these sectors is the largest hidden expense on the payroll.

These sectors also carry the sharpest compliance exposure of any we work in. Award interpretation, casual conversion and rostering are where wage underpayment cases start, and in our experience they are almost always administrative failures rather than deliberate ones. A venue or store group can be operating in good faith and still be exposed, because the award is genuinely difficult and nobody in the business owns it.

In manufacturing, transport and supply chain the pressure is different again. The workforce is ageing, licensed and ticketed roles cannot be filled from adjacent industries, and the people who hold operational knowledge are approaching retirement without an obvious successor.