A North East bus driver says he's been overwhelmed with responses from young people wanting to work at the Mount Hotham and Dinner Plain snowfields, after he put a call out on social media asking people to help struggling businesses.
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Myrtleford's Chris Bonacci, owner of Alpine Spirit Coaches, posted in the Myrtleford Community Facebook Group seeking senior school students to work, after noting "Australia is experiencing a staffing shortage never seen before".
"Our friends on Hotham and Dinner Plain (and no doubt Falls Creek) are at critical levels for staff," he said.
"We now have businesses potentially not operating at all."
"Everyone is struggling, but to come back to the snow, where businesses only have that four month window to recapture any losses, we've had when COVID come along, it's just sad to see," Mr Bonacci said.
"We've got all this work and no one to do it, it's almost like a double sided sword."
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Mr Bonacci finished the post by asking for anyone interested to get in touch and said Alpine Spirit Coaches would try to help workers with accommodation and travel to the mountains, despite managing a lack of staff themselves.
Within about 24 hours Mr Bonacci's post had been shared thousands of times and he said he'd received up to 70 inquiries from young people in the North East and from further afield.
"I went to dinner and my phone was beeping literally every 20 seconds," he said.
"I've had phone calls as far as Brisbane, Sydney and Melbourne, so I'm actually overwhelmed with how far it's gone out.
"Year 12 students from Beechworth, Wangaratta, out of Wodonga ... there were some families up here who've got their parents working up here and they thought we could get our child to work in the school holidays, so there's been a few 16-year-olds.
"There's a lot of kids who have part time jobs at Woolies or Maccas that want to work in the snow for two weeks."
Mr Bonacci said he'd been so inundated with responses his wife had actually asked him to take the post down.
"It' s been nice because people knock the young people, but we've had a lot of young people apply," he said.
"It just shows there's a lot of good out there and it's not as bad as people think.
"One of the businesses I was hoping to help rang up and said it looks like they've got enough staff, so that means families coming up for the school holidays now will have someone there to give them a service."
But Mr Bonacci said there was still plenty of work out there.
"They're looking for people to help with the marshaling of cars, customer service," he said.
Mr Bonacci said if young people weren't employed this year to not be disheartened and try again next year.
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