That’s the conundrum facing many Griffith business owners, who say unemployed locals are turning their noses up at golden job opportunities.

Official Centrelink figures show 544 people in Griffith collected unemployment benefits last month, yet business owners – especially in the fast food and manufacturing sectors – claim plum jobs are going begging.

The news comes a week after the Federal Government approved a pilot program to draft thousands of Pacific Islander workers to areas like Griffith in a bid to fill harvest labour jobs locals have refused to do.

Griffith KFC and McDonald’s are two of the hardest hit by the retail labour shortage, with McDonald’s franchisee Darren Savage saying the situation was becoming critical. “The bottom line is I could fill 25 positions tomorrow, so my current employees didn’t have to work so much and interfere with their education,” Mr Savage said.

“A lot of the kids out there don’t need part-time jobs because mum and dad give them $50 to go and watch a movie.

“Kids need to learn a work ethic, they need to learn the lesson that nothing is for free in life.”

Mr Savage, who has just returned from a trip with 15 prominent local business owners, said the labour shortage was discussed at length, affecting businesses from all sectors. For Rossies manager Ross Catanzariti, it wasn’t so much filling the positions as it was finding the right person.

“Filling the position is easy, finding a reliable person certainly isn’t,” he said.

Griffith Chamber of Commerce president Craig Tilston said the irony of the situation was that other business sectors were cutting back on positions due to the economic slowdown.

“I’m hearing more of businesses having to cut back on staff because of the tough times,” Mr Tilston said.

“Given there’s plenty of people unemployed, you’d think there’d be enough to fill all the positions. Perhaps some people think Maccas and KFC aren’t appropriate places for them to work.

“So it’s probably a type of work issue rather than an across-the-board issue.”

Which was more the pity, according to Grace Sergi from employment agency Summit Personnel.

“Employers love kids who have worked at McDonald’s because it instils such discipline and structure,” Mrs Sergi said.

“There are lots of jobs out there we’re struggling to fill though – both skilled and unskilled.”