I hear this from newsagency owners and other small business retailers often: They have a casual role to fill and nobody decent applies. Or someone applies, starts, and is gone within three weeks. Or the right person gets the job but six months later leaves for the supermarket down the road.
Hiring is harder than it was five years ago. The ABS reported in March 2026 that Australia’s unemployment rate is sitting at 4.3%. That is historically low. There are fewer people looking for casual retail work, and you are competing for them against businesses with bigger advertising budgets and more hours to offer.
That is the environment. You cannot change it. But you can change how you operate within it.
You are competing against supermarkets and fast food
A casual looking for weekend work can choose between your newsagency, the supermarket or fast food outlet nearby, and other big businesses with structure and, often, more hours.
You are not going to win on hours alone. You win on other things, a better working environment, less chaos, a manager who actually knows their name.
You have to deliberately create these points of difference.
Where owners go wrong
I have seen the same mistakes across many businesses I work with.
The job ad says something like “casual retail assistant, apply within.” That tells a candidate nothing useful. What days? What hours? What will they actually do? Will they be opening the shop at 5:30am? Will they handle lottery sales? Do they need to lift stock? A vague job ad gets vague candidates, or no candidates.
The induction is either non-existent or consists of following someone around for a day and hoping they absorb things by osmosis. A new casual who is confused and unsupported in the first two weeks will find somewhere less confusing. They will not tell you that. They will just stop showing up.
There are no regular check-ins. The owner is busy. The casual never raises issues because there is no space for it. Small problems compound. Six months later, they hand in notice and the owner is surprised.
What actually works
Write a job ad that describes the job. Like, for real! “Saturday and Sunday, 6am–12pm, lottery and magazine sales, some stock work, must be comfortable with early starts.” That filters in the right people and filters out the wrong ones. Post it on community Facebook groups. Put a notice on the local school or TAFE noticeboard. Ask your existing staff , referrals from people who already know what the job involves are often the best source.
Build a simple, written induction. Not a corporate manual. A one-page document that covers: what time to arrive, who to call if sick, how the register works, what the opening routine looks like, and where to find things. Two hours to create. Weeks of confusion saved.
Do a check-in weekly. Not a formal review. Just: “How is it going? Anything confusing? Anything I should know?” Most of the time the answer is nothing. But occasionally you will catch something early that would have become a resignation.
People leave managers, not businesses
I know a newsagency that has turned over three casuals in twelve months. The owner says the local labour market is impossible. The real issue is that every one of those casuals felt ignored, unclear on expectations, and invisible from the second they were hired.
The same wage, the same hours, a different manager, that person stays.
The General Retail Industry Award sets your minimum rates. Know what they are. Pay them. It costs more to advertise, interview, hire, and train someone new than it does to pay a decent casual fairly and make them feel worth keeping. Current minimums are at fairwork.gov.au.
Retention is cheaper than recruitment. In a tight labour market, that calculation matters more than it ever has.
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Mark Fletcher founded newsagency software company Tower Systems and is the CEO of newsXpress, a marketing group serving innovative independent retailers who continuously evolve their businesses to be enjoyable, relevant and successful. You can reach him on mark@newsxpress.com.au or 0418 321 338.