McDonald's franchisee pays $28/hour for new staff

The difficulty of finding staff in the hospitality sector has been highlighted by the McDonald's franchisees in Queenstown and Frankton, who are offering $28 an hour for untrained and inexperienced staff to work during their busiest time of year. Workers will also be paid time-and-a-half on public holidays – a total of $42 an hour before tax. Workers at the two stores are already being paid a starting rate of $25 an hour, necessary to meet Immigration NZ requirements.

'I think it’s a significant amount of money to pay somebody you train on the job,' franchisee Sarah Lucas told Stuff. She said she was frustrated with Immigration NZ policies and had found the new Accredited Employer Work Visa (AEWV) system and its implementation 'woefully inept'. The AEWV actually discriminates against franchisees as employers, charging them more than 5 times as much as independent businesses to become accredited under the scheme.

People were now paying more for the system and getting a worse service than before, Lucas said.

'I email Immigration all the time. Some of our people get stuck in the system, and they just don’t move. They just sit there, and nobody tells you,' she said. 'I just wish the Government would wake up and see what they’re doing to businesses.'