Your working holiday staff will leave mid season: build the bench before February
A working holiday maker's last shift is knowable the week they start, yet most venues still meet it in February as a surprise. Why the exits cluster, what one uncovered Saturday costs four ways, and the five steps to a bench that covers it.
Somewhere on your roster is a bartender whose last shift already has a date on it. A Working Holiday visa is a 12 month stay, plenty of holders time their arrival for summer, and the leaving dates bunch up in the weeks after it, so February lands like a walkout when it's really a calendar. You don't have a loyalty problem. You have a capacity problem with a known date on it.
The short version: ask every working holiday maker for their visa end date, their passport and whether they want a second year, and keep the answers beside the roster. Add up the weekly hours leaving inside six months and look at which shifts they sit on. Onboard two or three casuals in December, while a senior is on every shift anyway, and fill what that bench can't cover from a pool you can reach inside the roster. This is general information, not legal, migration or financial advice.
Why they leave when they do
Two dates decide it. The first is the visa itself: 12 months, knowable in the week someone first puts on your apron. The second is the chase for a second year. Specified work for a second Working Holiday (subclass 417) visa is tied to particular industries and regions, and tourism and hospitality only counts in Northern Australia and remote or very remote areas. A bar in Surry Hills or a cafe in Fitzroy doesn't count, so anyone who wants year two has to leave the city with enough time left to do their 88 days.
| What Home Affairs counted | Figure | What it tells a venue |
|---|---|---|
| Working Holiday (417) holders in Australia, 30 June 2025 | 164,620 | The pool your casuals come from, and go back into |
| Of those, United Kingdom citizens | 50,006 (30.4%) | Your largest group needs no 88 days if they applied from 1 July 2024 |
| Second 417 visas in 2024-25 naming no industry | 46.5% | Mostly UK holders, who can stay put all year |
| Second 417 visas naming agriculture, forestry and fishing | 20,074 | The work that pulls people out of the city |
| Second 417 visas naming accommodation and food services | 10,014 | Hospitality counts, just not in your postcode |
So the two questions worth asking at onboarding are which passport, and do you want a second year. A UK bartender with no farm plans can work your floor for all 12 months. A French or Korean backpacker who wants to stay on can be gone by month nine, because the regional work has to fit inside the first visa. And the queue behind them is shorter this year: as at 14 September 2026, Home Affairs shows first Work and Holiday (subclass 462) applications paused for most of its capped partner countries, including Argentina, Chile, Poland and Singapore.
Nobody has to leave at six months. Visa condition 8547 normally limits a working holiday maker to six months with one employer, but since 1 January 2024 tourism and hospitality work anywhere in Australia is exempt, with no permission to request. If a good bartender tells you they have to go at six months, they're working from old information. The caps and checks that do apply are in our guide to rostering visa staff.
What one February Saturday costs to cover
Take one casual food and beverage attendant grade 2, a Level 2 under the Hospitality Award, working eight hours on a Saturday night in February. From the first full pay period on or after 1 July 2026 that's $40.62 an hour, 150% of the $27.08 ordinary rate with the casual loading built in, so $324.96 for the shift plus 12% super. That wage line is the same whoever works it. Everything on top is where the four routes split.
| How the shift gets covered | On top of the $324.96 | Gap to filled | Who walks in |
|---|---|---|---|
| Your own bench | Nothing | One message | Someone who knows which taps run slow |
| Labour hire agency | A margin usually quoted at 15% to 25%, at least $49 to $81 here | Days of calls, sometimes hours | Whoever the agency sends |
| Shiftly On-Demand | 8% service fee, about $26 | Minutes, from inside the roster | A shifter whose profile, qualifications and rating you read first |
| Running short | Nothing on the wage line | Never | Nobody, so the five who turned up carry it |
The Saturday costs $324.96 in wages whoever works it. What you actually choose is what sits on top, and whether the person knows your floor.
The route that looks free is the dearest one on the board. Running short lands on the tables that wait and on the five people who did turn up, and they're the ones you'll ask to cover the next gap too, which is how a planned exit becomes the slow drift in why your casuals stop picking up shifts. The agency margin sits on your loaded cost rather than the wage, so the per-hour maths usually lands higher than the table's floor.
How a venue builds the bench
Most retention advice online was written for the northern hemisphere and tells you to plan in "late summer or early fall". An Australian venue's version starts in November. A bench isn't a bigger roster: it's a short list of people who are already onboarded, already cleared for the role and already used to your floor.
- Write the leaving date down. Ask for the visa end date, the passport and the second year plan on day one, and keep the answers beside the roster rather than in a drawer. Twelve months is generous warning, but only if somebody sees it in November.
- Count shifts, not heads. Three people leaving on 15 hours each is 45 hours a week, and it won't spread evenly. It's the Friday and Saturday night pair, the two shifts hardest to refill, which usually means about three extra casuals cleared for those nights rather than one new full timer.
- Onboard while you're already busy. Bring on two or three casuals in December, alongside your Christmas surge hires, when a senior is on every shift anyway. A current RSA, an induction and a first shift beside an experienced hand cost far less in December than in a short-staffed February.
- Keep the bench warm. Someone who hasn't worked in six weeks isn't a bench, they're a phone number. Offer open shifts to that group first, keep their availability current and give each of them a shift a fortnight so they stay sharp on your floor.
- Decide now where the overflow goes. Some Saturdays three people will be short at once. Pick the route for that night in advance, so the answer isn't a group chat at 4pm.
Where Shiftly fits
Shiftly is free workforce management for Australian venues, built to be the roster that fills itself. Availability comes from the staff app, open shifts go to the people cleared for the role, swaps update the roster on approval, and award-aware timesheets and pay tools help you estimate what an extra Saturday adds before you publish. That's the bench, kept warm inside the roster you already run.
For the weekends the bench can't cover, Shiftly On-Demand lets you post the shift to a pool of local hospitality shifters and read their profile, qualifications and rating before you accept. Shifters are engaged directly by your venue as independent contractors, and Shiftly facilitates the match rather than acting as the employer, an agency or a payroll provider. The platform is free, a filled On-Demand shift carries an 8% service fee, and On-Demand is rolling out starting in Sydney, so get the team and roster on now. Get started with Shiftly.
Frequently asked questions
When do working holiday staff usually leave a venue?
There's no single date, which is why it feels sudden. A Working Holiday visa is a 12 month stay, so leaving dates follow arrival dates, and anyone chasing a second visa has to fit their specified work in before the first one ends, usually regionally and usually outside hospitality. Ask for the end date and the second year plan at onboarding and the February cluster stops being a surprise.
Does working in my venue count towards their 88 days?
Usually not, and that's what pulls people out of city venues mid season. Tourism and hospitality only counts as specified work in Northern Australia and remote or very remote areas, and in 2024-25 agriculture, forestry and fishing was named on 20,074 second Working Holiday visa grants against 10,014 for accommodation and food services. The exception is United Kingdom passport holders who applied on or after 1 July 2024, who don't need specified work at all.
How deep should the bench be?
Work it in shifts rather than people. Add up the weekly hours held by staff whose visa ends inside six months, then look at which shifts those hours sit on. A venue losing 45 hours a week concentrated on Friday and Saturday nights needs roughly three extra casuals cleared for those shifts and used to the floor, not one new full timer and not a list of names nobody has rostered since October.
Co-founder of Shiftly. Milan works with hospitality businesses across Australia to make rostering, timesheets and award-based pay radically simpler.
