Australian Cafe Hires 11-Year-Old Children As Employees, Sparks Outrage

A regional cafe in Australia's New South Wales has sparked outrage after it was reported that it employs children as young as 11, the Guardian reported. Notably, the children are paid award wages to wash dishes, make jams and relishes and serve customers. In New South Wales, there's no minimum working age but a person has to be 11 before he/she can receive a tax file number.

The news comes amid a push for a national minimum age for child workers. As per the report, the government is considering a recommendation to make the minimum working age 15, or 13 for ''light work'', with some exemptions for those under 13.

Notably, the Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC) recently did a story on a cafe where most of the 100 workers are school-age children. Owners of Long Track Pantry in the small Australian town of Jugiong, Huw and Juliet Robb said that they opened the cafe a few years ago and faced an employee shortage. The population of the town is only 200, so staffing the factory kitchen presented a challenge for them.

"We realised we were unlikely to attract skills and talent out of the city into a regional place like Jugiong, so we needed to build our team from the ground up," Mr Robb told ABC News.

After the story went viral, many on social media criticised the establishment and accused the cafe of ''child labour,'' while some supported the move saying that the children were paid award wages. Notably, different states and territories across the country have provisions and laws in place to prevent child labour some of them do not stipulate a minimum age. 

One user wrote, ''While different states and territories across the country have provisions and laws in place to prevent child labour some of them do not stipulate a minimum age.'' Another noted, ''Yay?? Really? Getting your first job at 9 is really sad. It's exploitative, and there's no other way to spin it. Children should just be allowed to be children, not part of a business model that depends on child labour.''

A third user, supportive of the move, wrote, ''Yay! This is common sense challenging political correctness: we need more of it. I got my first job when I was 9, and it was a great learning experience. The Long Track Pantry is a fantastic enterprise: good to see these kids becoming part of it.''

A fourth also defended the cafe and wrote, ''Nothing wrong with kids having part-time jobs. The problem is the majority child workforce, and they're proud of it. They invested in a commercial kitchen knowing that there was insufficient local labour to fully utilise its 200 staff capacity. Kids were always the plan.''

As of last year, about 214,500 children aged 15 and under were legally working in Australia, reported the Guardian citing an employment and workplace relations survey.