WITH businesses across the country reopening their doors after COVID lockdowns, there's an understandable determination to get going as quickly as possible, and to make hay - or in the case of the Hunter's vignerons, make wine - while the sun shines.
Some, however, are finding a major impediment to their plans, in the form of a labour shortage.
In Port Stephens, Shoal Bay Country Club say it has 100 vacancies and is offering substantial bonuses to staff and patrons if they attract a successful applicant.
In the vineyards, labour is so short that winemakers fear they won't have enough hands in the field to ensure the New Year vintage is picked.
So, what is happening?
The obvious answer is a shortage of backpackers, foreign students and immigrant workers on short-term visas, after Prime Minister Scott Morrison told them it was "time to go home" last year.
"Fortress Australia" is now cautiously reopening for business - the first loads of Pacific Island visa workers are already out in the fields - but there appear to be other forces at play.
Last Thursday the ABS announced the October employment figures, with a jobless rate of 5.4 per cent - up slightly - for NSW and nationwide.
Regional breakdowns are out this week but Newcastle and Lake Macquarie had a jobless rate of 4.4 per cent in September, with the rest of the Hunter Valley recording an even lower 3.2 per cent.
Monthly unemployment figures are estimates based on surveys, and the ABS cautions against taking the regional figures too literally: it's the trend that counts.
Regardless, it is clear that the labour market is extremely tight.
Before JobKeeper ended in April, some said it paid so well that recipients did not want to return to work.
This may well have been the case, but it is worth remembering that economists have bemoaned a lack of wages growth across the developed economies in the past decade or so.
In theory, a jobs "market" means that the price of labour goes up and down according to its scarcity.
If most people are already in jobs, then filling vacancies will necessarily involve convincing people to give up their job to take yours.
The best way to do that is to offer more money.
If employers have to pass on the extra costs with price rises, then that's the free enterprise market at work.
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