Drakes operates 66 stores in South Australia and Queensland with more than 6,000 Australians employed.

However, director John Paul Drake is struggling to fill vacancies despite offering an onsite gym, free lunch and canteen at their distribution centre.

This has led the company to open the door for international workers.

Speaking to Chris Kenny on Sky News, Mr Drake said it’s an “extraordinary situation” that his distribution centre in Adelaide’s northern suburbs is looking to fill 20 vacancies in an area where the unemployment rate is five times higher than the national rate of 4.2 per cent.

“Chris, it's hard to comprehend. The unemployment rate in the northern suburbs is actually 21 per cent,” Mr Drake said.

“So, when you're talking about a number like that, it is quite big.

“I'll admit, it might not be the sexiest job in the world, but the guys and girls we have down there, they're picking up to 10 tonne a day, but they're working pretty much Monday to Friday 9 to 3, $38 an hour and we are having to import people from Vanuatu to fill up the rest of the jobs and we need more people there even now.”

Mr Drake claims that post-Covid, some Australians figure they are better off not working long shifts and rather receive more money from Centrelink.

“They've got the job and then when we get them started with an 8 or 12 hour shift they turn around and sit and go, well hang on, I can actually get paid more by not actually working here,” he said.

The director of Drakes said there could be something "fundamentally wrong" with Australia’s unemployment system for people to turn down jobs and cash in on benefits.

“And then you sit and go okay well fundamentally we might have a system problem when the employee they won't take the job because they're getting more Centrelink benefits than they are actually working so there's some other things there we need to look at.”

“And when people sit there and go, oh, well you're not employing Australians. Well, that's just that's not true. We're employing as many Australians as we can.

“Is there something fundamentally wrong with the current system which is making it very difficult?

“I mean, do I need to provide limo service to pick them up to bring them to work? You know, do I need to have dinners prepared for them for when they leave? I mean how far can you go?”

Mr Drake said his Vanuatuan workers from the PALM scheme are being paid the same as Australians with 20 currently employed in the business.

“I can tell you, so we've had nine month visas, and we get a new load every nine months and the current team go back. And I could tell you out of our top eight performers, they come in with the top six. That's a huge number,” he said.

“They're such hardworking individuals that bought a worth ethic second to none.”