The Northern Territory’s tourism and hospitality sector is desperately seeking more than 7,000 staff in the lead up to what is expected to be a busy Dry season for tourists and locals, with calls for the NT Government to help out by bringing in foreign workers.

“Everywhere I go, every conversation in our industry is about the workforce shortage,” Hospitality NT CEO Alex Bruce told Mix104.9 on Friday. “The demand is there from locals and Australian tourists.”

Mr Bruce said the 7,000 workers needed includes casual, part-time and full-time positions for a range of jobs such as kitchen staff, housekeepers, front of house bar staff and waiters.

He also urged Territorians who may want to earn an extra income to get a part-time job or casual work at upcoming major events.

He added there’s also hundreds of workers needed at the Darwin Turf Club for its annual Cup Carnival and another 100 vacant jobs at Yulara, near Uluru.

Figures from the March 2021 Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) data shows the unemployment rate rose by 0.7 percentage points to 5.6 per cent in the month, reporting the fourth lowest seasonally adjusted rate of the jurisdictions.

In the year to February 2020, the largest contributor to NT employment was from the Health Care and Social Assistance sector, up by 13.6 per cent to 22,639 persons.

The largest decrease in local employment was in the Arts and Recreation Services sector (down by 29.9 per cent to 2,828 persons, ABS data shows).

The highest number of persons employed in the NT continues to be with the government and community services with 58,375, recording a 10.2 per cent year-on-year growth.

Mr Bruce also revealed that a survey conducted on Hospitality NT’s members found that 97 per cent of businesses are facing a labour shortage crisis.

“We do look at it though and think, when you’re talking 7,000 workers though that could be up here, living with us working in our communities – that is a major project right there,” he said.

“It is a mixed and challenging problem for us. We just think we have to do everything we can, pull every lever at the moment.”

Tourism Top End General Manager Glen Hingley said many hospitality workers who were reliant on JobKeeper flew back to Sydney and Melbourne when the stimulus ended last month.

“We look at our hospitality and in our hotel sector and there’s a lot of empty spaces there and that’s one of the biggest challenges,” he told Mix104.9 on Friday.

He also explained that some hotels may be saying they’re full but in reality they’re 70 per cent full because they’re understaffed and “they don’t want to over promise and under deliver on the service”.

Mr Bruce also called on the NT Government to look at what other jurisdictions are doing to ease labor shortages which some are piloting early this month.

“We do think there is something to look at about getting COVID safe (and having) neighboring countries and getting some of the workers coming down through us, if we can sort out the flights and the quarantining,” he said.

“The fact that at the moment you can land a plane in Perth, and it’s got agricultural workers on it, and hospitality workers on the can go all the way north to Broome, yet we can’t do it in the Territory, that just has a scratching our heads a little bit.”