Retirees take up farm work to become a much-loved part of Australia’s seasonal workforce
When retirement arrives, a lot of Aussies decide to up sticks and travel, but they are doing more than just the big lap. Grey Nomads are supplementing their super or pension by working on farms. And for a lot of primary producers, these older workers are a much-loved part of their seasonal workforce.
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00:00It's a cool morning at the Bort Caravan Park where grey nomads Geoff and Val are waking
00:14up from a long night.
00:17The couple from Western Australia have been picking olives in the small Victorian town.
00:24They work from midday until midnight.
00:28In their late 60s, early 70s they're happy to do so.
00:32What is it about this type of work that you like?
00:35Stress free, go home, leave in eight weeks.
00:40Val was a telephonist in PNG in her early years.
00:43She also worked in pharmacies and delis.
00:46Through his life Geoff has been a mechanic, farmhand, truck driver and jack of all trades
00:52which has come in handy.
00:54You just come to work, sit on the machine, you fix it, something major goes wrong, somebody
01:02else comes and does it for you.
01:06It's not stressful or anything, some days it is.
01:10Ruth Sutherland is in charge of over 300 staff on this olive grove and she says they actively
01:16recruit grey nomads.
01:17Yeah, the grey nomads are cool.
01:20So we have a nice group, our harvest staff are generally made up of a group of grey nomads
01:25and the rest are backpackers and the grey nomads generally, some of them have been coming
01:31here for a long, long time, well over a decade and they're just really reliable, they're
01:36very experienced, they're a good part of our team and it's nice to have that mix of people
01:40and cultures actually at the farm while we harvest.
01:43Ruth says employing an older workforce has a lot of advantages including being gentle
01:48with the millions of dollars worth of machinery.
01:54And she encourages more people to apply, however it's not all roses, they do expect you to
02:00work long hours.
02:0112 hour days, 5 days a week, but really it's just being open to being trained and then
02:09just being attentive on your job and communicating with us when you need help because we're always
02:15supporting all our team 24 hours a day, they're harvesting and we've got people out there
02:18supporting the machines, we've got mechanics, technical staff, operations staff, so everyone's
02:23there to make sure that we support our harvest staff.
02:26Why do you think the employers like you?
02:29We're here for the 8 weeks and they don't have to worry about us too much, maybe our
02:34age too, we're pretty consistent on coming back.
02:42Just with all our life experiences, we look after the machines fairly well and we don't
02:53party every night.