Hospitality staff priced out of rentals

A special edition of Anglicare Australia’s Rental Affordability Snapshot has revealed that hospitality workers can afford less than one per cent of listed rentals in Australia.

The report surveyed rental listings as part of Anti-Poverty Week to determine whether essential workers in full time work could afford to rent a home.

To test affordability, Anglicare assessed over 45,000 listings from realestate.com.au over one weekend against the wages of essential workers, including aged care workers, cleaners, retail workers, and hospitality workers. The social advocacy organisation used the internationally accepted benchmark that housing should not exceed more than 30 per cent of a household’s weekly income.

Hospitality workers landed worst off among the focus groups, with just 352 out of 45,115 rental listings deemed affordable – a mere 0.8 per cent of the total listings.

“It should be national scandal that so few of our essential workers can afford to keep a roof over their head,” said Anglicare Australia Executive Director Kasy Chambers.

“Our snapshot shows that more and more essential workers are being pushed into serious rental stress – and pushed out of their own communities.”

“Virtually no part of Australia is affordable for aged care workers, early childhood educators, cleaners, nurses, and many other essential workers we rely on. It’s no wonder so many critical industries are facing worker shortages.”

The news comes as the latest blow for the sector during the current cost of living crisis, with CreditorWatch research recently revealing that hospitality businesses are most at risk of failure.

Anglicare Australia is urging the Government to directly fund public housing, rather than relying on the private sector. It has also called on the Government to wind back landlord tax concessions.

“It’s been clear for years now that the private market is failing people on low incomes. Now it’s clear that it’s also failing our key workers – including those who work full time.”

Although the results are dire, Chambers says it an opportunity for change.

More information is available from the Anglicare website.

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