Labour crisis: Rodney Wayne says he could hire dozens more staff. Instead, he has to shut hairdresser salons down

Rodney Wayne at his offices in the Viaduct, downtown Auckland. Photo / Alex Burton

Imagine building your business up over 50 years and having capacity to hire dozens more people, but instead shutting shops because you can’t get workers.

Kiwi businessman Rodney Wayne said that was the position he faced now.

He was tearing his hair out at a lack of migrants, closing three salons amid what he said was a wider barber and salon sector labour crisis.

Wayne said a lack of new migrants was damaging the industry.

“It’s totally dropped off for three years.”

Wayne told the Herald he could be employing 30-40 more salon workers right now but nowhere near enough people were arriving to fill vacancies.

“It’s just a disaster.”

He said a major supplier told him it knew of 17 other salons going into receivership recently.

Wayne said these businesses paid tax but the Government was effectively letting them fail by not addressing the labour shortage.

He said his customers were loyal and where possible went to get haircuts at different sites he had, but that was not a long-term solution.

“There’s been one or two stylists but at most of our sites we have to do seven days. It just doesn’t work.”

High attrition rates were normal in the industry, Wayne said. Young people working in salons often went on maternity leave or OEs.

That was usually not a big hassle, he added, because before Covid enough people arrived from abroad to pick up vacant jobs.

Wayne said he wrote to Immigration Minister Michael Wood about the issues but received only a generic response.

A spokesman for Wood said labour shortages were a persistent global problem as countries started recovering from Covid-19.

“While the Government can ensure the ability for those to come and work here, we acknowledge that people-to-people movement globally remains slow when compared to pre-Covid levels.”

He said the Government was trying to fix the problems, and some progress had been made.

“There have now been approvals for businesses to recruit internationally for over 88,000 positions since we streamlined the system to coincide with our reopening.”

Wood’s office said more than 25,000 international migrants across 550 different occupations nationwide had applied under the new Accredited Employer Work Visa.

Immigration Minister Michael Wood said labour shortages were a persistent problem globally. Photo / Mark Mitchell

Since at least July, the Herald has reported on massive labour shortages nationwide, especially in hospitality and tourism.

Stats NZ data showed the number of people arriving in September outstripped the number leaving.

But any brain drain reversal might not be quick enough for Wayne and others with businesses at risk.

“We have just got a couple of people come in from South Africa but it’s taken a year,” he said.

And he said he recently wanted to employ a migrant from abroad but was told he had to re-promote a salon job vacancy to ensure the migrant was not displacing a local candidate.

Since unemployment was so low, that was an absurd proposition, he said.

Wayne said the labour shortage also had consequences for apprentices.

Wayne said he was happy the Government had supported apprenticeship schemes.

“I built my business and brand by putting people through the apprenticeship system.”

He was an apprentice himself, first as a butcher, then as a hairdresser.

But now, he said not enough skilled staff were left to train apprentices.

“We just haven’t been able to bring people in.”