Sometimes, North Queensland business owner Aymon Vagulans thinks: "What's the point of having a business?"
Skills shortages, stifled productivity and the rising costs of power all contribute to a perfect storm that's crippling many in his shoes.
Mr Vagulans, General Manager of NEM Group, a Townsville-based steel processing and fabrication services company, said: "There needs to be more incentive for small-to-medium businesses to want to be in business.
"It's getting harder and harder to make a dollar. Everyone looks at you and says: 'Look at this facility you've got, you're turning over millions.'
"Turnover may be high, but the profit margins are low, owing to the rising costs of production.
"There's not as much incentive to run a business as there used to be."
Skills shortages
"Trying to get skilled workers into the country is so hard," Mr Vagulans said.
There are that many taxes and levies. It seems like at every step, there's another hurdle.
"We went through the process last year of trying to bring some skilled workers in, and it all became too much and too expensive.
"We ended up pulling out, even though there were potential candidates.
"A cost-effective, user-friendly system to bring skilled workers into the country would go a long way towards fixing our shortages of skilled labour."
Apprentices
It doesn't help that fewer companies are putting on apprentices these days, Mr Vagulans said.
"We put on three to four a year, so we've always got anywhere from between 10 or 12 apprentices at any one time at various levels: first, second, third and fourth years.
"Some big companies in Townsville used to put on 50 to 60 a year. They're not doing it anymore.
"While there is funding and subsidised training, there needs to be more incentives around putting on apprentices."
The other side of the apprentice problem is finding young people "willing to do the hard yards and the trades we're offering".
"There aren't as many 'kids' as there used to be who want to engage in that type of work," Mr Vagulans said.
"Then you have to get these apprentices through their training — up to four years — and then hopefully retain them for a year or two after that, so you get some benefit out of putting them through, which is not always the case.
"We're at the point where if we can get a couple of years out of them, that's great, and if we can't, we go: 'At least we've developed another tradesperson, and they're in the industry now.'
"Hopefully, they'll cycle back through at some stage, and we get that benefit back.
"We're doing the best we can to fill our skills shortage."
