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Rural Australian town saved by influx of Filipino workers

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Anna Watanabe, Kyodo News

PYRAMID HILL, Australia - Around the corner from the only pub in town, and opposite its lone bus stop, sits the Pyramid Hill Filipino Food Store.With a large Filipino flag above the door and shelves packed with items like banana ketchup and &quot;Chippy&quot; corn chips, the two-year-old grocery stands out -- particularly in this rural Victorian town 250 kilometers north of Melbourne.But the shop stands as an example of how Pyramid Hill&#x27;s steadily growing Filipino community is reinvigorating the small town&#x27;s economy, and ensuring its survival.Today, Filipino families make up about one-quarter of Pyramid Hill&#x27;s roughly 550 residents. And as more people have arrived to work in the town&#x27;s agricultural industries, they&#x27;ve built homes, joined the volunteer fire brigade and enrolled their children in local schools, saving one from near-certain closure.&quot;If you ask the old people here what they think about the Filipino population, they&#x27;ll say they&#x27;ve saved us,&quot; says Cheryl McKinnon, mayor of Loddon Shire, the municipality that includes Pyramid Hill.McKinnon says natural disasters and commodity recessions over the past 20 years saw younger generations move away from farm work and pursue opportunities in urban centers.At its lowest, the mayor estimates the town&#x27;s population sank to just over 400.Like many regional Australian towns, Pyramid Hill&#x27;s population progressively declined, despite low unemployment levels, meaning when local businesses like the Kia Ora Piggery wanted to expand, there was no workforce to draw upon.That, explains Jared Smith, is why his father took it upon himself to travel to Manila 10 years ago, to sponsor five veterinarians to work in the business.&quot;No one grows up in Australia wanting to work on a pig farm,&quot; says the 38-year-old co-owner and manager of the establishment. &quot;That&#x27;s a completely different mindset to the guys from the Philippines. They enjoy the work, they appreciate the work.&quot;Today, Kia Ora Piggery -- the largest employer in Pyramid Hill -- has 50 staff members on the books, half of whom are from the Philippines.Initially, the business focused on sponsoring trained veterinarians but soon expanded, hiring mechanics and laborers. People like Richard Fernandez, who followed his wife, Marilyn, to Pyramid Hill a year after she was one of the first five to be sponsored.Fernandez, 49, describes Australia as &quot;the land of opportunity,&quot; and says many Filipinos aspire to take advantage of the country&#x27;s generous working visa scheme which allows applicants who work in regional communities to apply for permanent residency after three years.Similarly, the country&#x27;s minimum wage of A$18.93 ($13.32) means that despite the higher cost of living, Australia remains a popular destination for immigrants around the world. The Australian Bureau of Statistics estimates that 29 percent of residents were born overseas.&quot;That&#x27;s a Filipino&#x27;s dream, to become Australian, especially if they have children. That&#x27;s our dream,&quot; the general laborer says. Today, the couple and their six children all hold Australian citizenship.Locals say the success of Pyramid Hill&#x27;s decade-long migration story has been how the community has come together to embrace the change.In addition to the annual Pyramid Hill Fiesta -- a multicultural festival of music, art and dance -- McKinnon says small, grassroots initiatives like cooking classes have helped bridge cultural divides.&quot;They&#x27;d have an Aussie and a Filipino come along and make a traditional dish and everyone would share it all,&quot; she explains. &quot;But the first one they had 15 people turn up, and then 25, and then 60, so it only ran for a set period!&quot;With Japan to introduce a new visa system in April to accept more foreign workers, McKinnon says community events such as these are one of &quot;three ingredients&quot; essential to positively introducing people to their new home.&quot;They must have meaningful employment that they can take pride in, adequate housing and a welcoming community,&quot; she says. &quot;Without any one of those, you&#x27;ll be creating problems, not solutions.&quot;McKinnon admits Pyramid Hill was caught off guard when the first Filipinos began working at the piggery and says the town has since been &quot;playing catch up&quot; to provide resettlement support, particularly language services.At the piggery, Fernandez says language was biggest challenge for him when settling in. Despite speaking conversational English, he described his co-workers as &quot;talk(ing) like birds, too fast.&quot;His advice for any compatriots looking to immigrate to Japan from April is to learn the language well or else risk unemployment.Fiona Moon, principal at Pyramid Hill College said while her students -- 13 percent of whom are from the Philippines -- are picking up English quickly, the school had to adjust how it communicates with parents whose language skills aren&#x27;t as strong.&quot;It&#x27;s notes home, it&#x27;s going on excursion, it&#x27;s ensuring that families understand what they&#x27;re signing and the notes are coming back,&quot; she said, noting the school has opened up their Facebook messenger to questions from parents.The 51-year-old said she&#x27;s also noticed families struggle to navigate financial and medical services in their new home country, and wondered if pairing up local and migrant families could be another way to provide support.Liz Ritchie, co-head of the Regional Australia Institute think tank, says services like migrant resource centers, which are common in large cities, are not readily available in rural communities, so local leaders are forced to take it upon themselves to provide support.&quot;We know that only 10 percent of migrants, roughly, who move to Australia end up in regional Australia,&quot; she said, suggesting governments are likely to focus their resources where the need is greatest.Federal government figures show roughly 87 percent of skilled migrants settle in Sydney or Melbourne, Australia&#x27;s two largest cities. In both locations record population growth, largely driven by immigration, has led to frustrations about housing and traffic.By contrast, studies by the RAI show that if just 2,000 to 3,000 new migrants moved to regional Australia each year, population decline in most areas could be prevented.To that end, Ritchie and the RAI welcome a federal government proposal in October to have new arrivals to Australia settle in regional areas for up to five years.&quot;This is a wonderful opportunity to fill workplace shortages, and we have case studies like Pyramid Hill which show it works, and why it works,&quot; Ritchie, 39, said.However, Pyramid Hill locals say it&#x27;s not that simple.&quot;You can&#x27;t just bring anybody and think that it&#x27;s going to work like it has in Pyramid Hill,&quot; says piggery manager Smith.&quot;These are beautiful people. They get involved in the community they&#x27;re good, honest people. They&#x27;ve got similar or better morals than us, and that&#x27;s what&#x27;s made it work.&quot;

PYRAMID HILL, Australia - Around the corner from the only pub in town, and opposite its lone bus stop, sits the Pyramid Hill Filipino Food Store.

PYRAMID HILL, Australia - Around the corner from the only pub in town, and opposite its lone bus stop, sits the Pyramid Hill Filipino Food Store.

Rural Australian town saved by influx of Filipino workers

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Rural Australian town saved by influx of Filipino workers

Anna Watanabe,

Kyodo News

Published March 08, 2019 10:59 PM PHT

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Australia

immigration

Pyramid Hill

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