Looking north, and seeing the deep troubles experienced in other growing regions in sourcing labour to transport cane to the mill, the Mackay region cane growing community is thankful for a couple of factors that have served us well this crush.
Canegrowers Mackay, working with our CQ Queensland Agricultural Workforce Network officer, went out hard and early, recruiting workers not just from within our community, but across the country. We used electronic billboards, social media and online jobs boards focused on backpackers and grey nomads. We ran ads in local media, and state rural press.
We even went old school, with posters and flyers delivered to roadhouses and caravan parks.
Beyond that, Canegrowers Mackay is almost unique among Queensland’s milling districts in that part of our recruitment strategy is to actively train haulout drivers. The course is led by growers and harvesters and a registered training organisation. This year, we had 20 trainees, 19 of whom passed the course and were work-ready by the end of their four-day training course, with some good in-paddock experience.
We think it’s important, to help raise skill levels of new workers to the industry, and thereby improve safety and productivity. That’s why we are currently applying for funding to run two courses in 2023.
This year, the course also taught us something. The majority of the trainees were older workers, looking for seasonal work to supplement their early retirement income. Many had experience in other ag sectors and were looking to apply these to cane harvesting. It’s interesting and gave us a pointer on places to focus efforts in 2023.
Overall, taking this multi-pronged recruitment approach has been a good success, thus far, with a list of people seeking work updating on our website jobs board, and members, for the most part, are not flagging that they are having difficulty sourcing labour.
However, with the crush now expected to extend into January, the sector will need to ensure that we can retain the labour needed to see the crush through, or if not, attract new workers. It’s a hard call, but many farming operations unfortunately end up relying on family members to scrape through that end part of the season.
We are lucky that, for the majority of harvesting operations in this region, a C-class licence is all that is needed to be a haulout driver. Like many regions, the sugarcane industry can suffer attrition to the resources sector. It can’t be helped – those are high paying jobs in an affluent industry.
But what the sugarcane industry can offer is a worksite that’s a green paddock, not a black and brown hole. And to be home with your loved ones every day. There’s a good lifestyle trade off.
