Power has been restored to Wodonga's CBD after a strong storm, but the lost 90 minutes has been felt by businesses.
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The vast majority of the city and the North East lost power just after 10.30am.
CVGT Australia had 40 of their clients to contact today with the return of mutual obligations compliance for JobSeeker.
Disability employment consultant Paul Monk said the requirement had been waived in recognition of COVID-19 in recent months, so it was important their clients were supported to fulfill their obligations after the break.
"NSW started back a bit earlier and we've just started today," he said.
"Everything's electronic, even our phones are all computerised.
"If we don't have power, we can't do anything."
Mutual obligation requirements are tasks and activities agreed to as part of a job plan.
They restarted across most of the country in September and returned for Victorian job seekers from November 23.
Further along High Street, Border Barber manager Merryn Kersting had somebody in the chair at the time the power went out, but was able to finish the haircut.
"We were lucky we have a lot of natural light that comes through," she said.
"It's frustrating, but what can you do?"
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All of High Street's businesses were shut during the outage and one cafe was starting to plan to get ice for food after having suffered a previous power outage recently.
Ms Kersting said she felt for hospitality businesses, who had been affected by the border closure and COVID-19.
"We haven't sort of slowed down, but coffee shops, all of those places have already been hit hard this year," she said.
The cause of the current power outage is being investigated and is weather-related, but the most recent widespread outage was related to testing of bushfire technology.
