The accommodation sector is praising the federal government for the development of a new template Labour Agreement which is expected to boost employment prospects for the tourism industry.

The proposed template agreement establishes a common set of requirements tailored specifically for tourism and hospitality businesses recruiting skilled overseas workers, and follows industry discussions at last year's Tourism Employment Roundtable.

The template would cover experienced waiters, chefs, bar attendants, hotel managers, food handlers with food handling certificate and other similar occupations, which Rodger Powell, managing director of Tourism Accommodation Australia says are seriously struggling to find staff.

"There is a critical shortage of labour. The work that's been done recently by the Labour and Skills Working Group as part of a national long term tourism strategy has identified a current shortage of 36,000 jobs [in Australian tourism]," Powell told Hospitality.

Chris Bowen, Minister for Immigration and Citizenship, said the new template seeks to balance the current standards of the visa system while also giving employers easier access to workers who have skills that are hard to find in Australia.

"Approved employers could nominate workers for temporary skilled subclass 457 visas using the template, enabling workers to be granted visas where they meet the requirements," Bowen said.

"Of course, employers would need to show they are doing their best to employ and train domestic workers and paying market rates," he added.

Tourism Accommodation Australia is looking forward to working closely with the government in reviewing the template, and counteracting the issues that make employment in the hospitality and tourism industry unappealing, including unsociable hours and more tempting employment prospects in other industries, Powell said.

"People can earn a lot more money working in mining than they can in tourism and yet having said that, we have the highest labour cost structure in tourism, particularly hospitality jobs, in the world, so our whole cost base is distorted by the high cost of labour.

"I recently had a five-star hotel GM tell me that they throw a party if they get two applications for a job ... The fact is we're just not getting young Australians applying for those jobs. We need other labour," he said.

Tourism and Transport Forum chief executive John Lee said the paper was a "welcome initiative" and urged tourism businesses to offer their feedback.

"Having a template will reduce their administration burden by streamlining the application process, so we would encourage business to take this opportunity to have their say on how the template should look, which businesses are eligible, as well as included occupations, salary, skill levels and English competency," he said.

The Government's discussion paper is open for comment until March 16 and can be found at http://www.tourism.gov.au/labour

Source:Hospitality Magazine website - 25 Jan 2012