You hear it wherever you go, not just in Lismore but the Northern Rivers, NSW and the rest of Australia, staff shortages.

The unemployment rate is 3.5%, one of the lowest on record. When you add in the growing wave of the BA4 and BA5 Omicron virus, which is due to peak next week or early August, the winter flu season and four months after one of the country's biggest natural disasters and it's a wonder anyone can open their doors for business let alone keep them open.

Garden Plate Owner, Vanessa Macmullen spoke to the Lismore App about the severe staff shortage she says hit Lismore's hospitality industry extremely hard since the floods.

She says that even after more than 15 years of forming connections in hospitality in the Lismore CBD prior to starting Garden Plate, when it came time to open, as per our story Vanessa has The Garden Plate ready for Monday's reopening, Vanessa found it hard to find staff at all, and no one she knew in the industry, could recommend anyone either.

Vanessa believes many hospitality workers have been displaced, disproportionately, and wonders where the staff, over 40 she says, from Flock Cafe and many of the other venues which are still closed, have gone.

With 20,000 Facebook views on her employment advert she says she only received one CV, and after two interviews, one coming from a Job provider, both initial staff members changed their minds, and she was back to the drawing board.

Vanessa says she knows of three other food and drink venues nearby that have been affected, one of which has not opened at all, due to their lack of ability to get a staff member for front-of-house takeaway service.

Peter Wilson from Planet Music said that he too had to 'find new staff because they couldn't afford to live here anymore due to the hefty increase in asked rent, from $350 to $700+".

You can add other businesses like Domino's, The Bank Cafe, The Sherwood and it's easy to see why owners and managers are complaining.

Prior to the flood event, we wrote about the staff shortages, you can read our article here: Hospitality staff shortages lead to free training for locals.

It appears that we may have entered a deeper crisis when it comes to staffing our businesses, now that the cost of living has increased, and the competition for rentals has increased dramatically, whilst the housing supply, has obviously decreased dramatically.

It leaves us with the question, if we can't house and support our workers, how will Lismore recover?