Demand for staff in Queenstown higher than ever – but people can’t afford to live there

Source: Radio New Zealand

Gold Rush: Who’s cashing in on Queenstown? An RNZ series examining the money flowing into Queenstown – and who’s missing out.

Workers are arriving in Queenstown and leaving within weeks because the cost of living is too high, recruiters and unions say.

Despite record-high visitor spending and hundreds of job listings, data shows a growing gap between average pay rates and day-to-day living costs in the district.

Café worker Orla Marshall, from Scotland, was living in a van – the only way she had been able to return to Queenstown after finding it too costly last winter, she said.

She initially rented a room in a flat with her partner in Fernhill at a below-average $220 per week – but it came with “very expensive” heating, she said.

“A lot of our paycheque was going towards that. And we did not necessarily find Queenstown to have higher wages, just higher prices,” she said.

According to Hospitality NZ, hospitality roles in Queenstown paid $28.51 per hour on average – just 2.4 percent higher than elsewhere in the country.

Data from Infometrics showed across the board, the average Queenstown worker earned $69,788 – 12 percent below the New Zealand average.

Meanwhile, both rents and house prices in Queenstown Lakes District were the most expensive in New Zealand.

Rents had risen faster than earnings, to their least affordable rate since 2000, Infometrics data showed – taking an average 27.2 percent of each renter’s income.

The average weekly rent in Queenstown was $707, compared to the New Zealand average of $573.

Groceries, fuel and other expenses all seemed to carry a Queenstown premium, Marshall said.

“I just cannot comprehend how [employers] expect people to be able to get by on the wages that they offer,” she said.

“If there are customers coming in, tours coming in, they are charging more, they are making more – but they are paying you the same as they would anywhere else, which is quite ridiculous.”

‘You can do the equation – it does not work’: union

Unite Union regional organiser Simon Edmunds said in the hospitality industry, he knew of people enduring poor rentals or working second jobs to get by.

“There are certainly some businesses that pay minimum wage in Queenstown – $23.50. Paying $300-400 for a room. You can do the equation – that does not work,” he said.

The average hospitality wage of $28.50 or the national living wage of $29 per hour was far from enough, he said.

“It is not just rent – food prices here are crazy expensive. Petrol is expensive … parking is incredibly expensive, and there are no provisions made for workers to get discounts.”

In 2023, workers had been resorting to living in their cars, tents, hostels and couch surfing to get by amid a shortage of rentals, he said.

Now, many were simply choosing other places to live, he said.

“A lot of people end up leaving. There is an awful lot of workers that come here with hopes. That try it out. That find they are just not saving money or even going backwards, and they will leave for somewhere else in New Zealand if they can, or overseas again.”

Demand for workers ‘crazy’: recruiter

Shauna O’Sullivan, area sales manager for recruitment company Remarkable People, said demand for staff was higher than ever, with hundreds of jobs available.

“It is just crazy busy down here. It is insane. I have been with the company for four years now, and this is the busiest it has ever been,” she said.

“The demand for skilled workers is very high and it is very, very difficult to find those that are staying and can commit to the work that needs to be done.”

She said high turnover was a huge factor in the job market – and she too was seeing people leave roles almost immediately.

“People do seem to be coming through and then leaving quite promptly… we place people into long-term roles and then maybe a week or two later they come back and say, look, I cannot afford to live here,” she said.

Many were looking across the ditch for higher wages.

“We are losing a lot of people to Australia,” she said.

Workers in, workers out

Edmunds said he was not holding out hope for employers to pay their workers more.

Queenstown appeared to be turning into a “high churn” economy, where employers – particularly in the tourism sector – paid poorly but recruited often, he said.

“There are good employers who have long-term staff, but they are a bit far and few between … for a lot of employers, they just accept that that is what you do in Queenstown and have adapted accordingly,” he said.

Edmunds said Queenstown had always been expensive place to live – but it should not just be a playground for the ultra-rich, he said.

“Queenstown can be a place that can have ultra-high-end tourism, beautiful, $20 million mansions and even billionaire bunkers… but what is to stop it from being a place where the people – who actually run it, who actually do the work and keep the shops open, who did right through Covid, who actually are committed long term to the place – actually get some of those rewards as well?”

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– Published by EveningReport.nz and AsiaPacificReport.nz, see: MIL OSI in partnership with Radio New Zealand