Wollongong publican Ryan Aitchison is among many Illawarra business owners no longer eligible for JobKeeper following its phasing back this week.
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Knowing The Illawarra was not going to continue to receive assistance from Monday he and Nikki Aitchison have been working towards managing the hotel without it.
The Aitchisons were keen to ensure the loss of JobKeeper assistance did not have a negative impact on staff.
"We are going to knuckle down and there will be absolutely no change to our rostering," Mr Aitchison said.
"We are actually hiring more staff at the moment.
"And the other big difference is we will probably put more employees on salary.
"We are looking towards the future and saying we can't just keep staff as casuals."
Mr Aitchison said it was impossible to predict whether there was going to be another wave of COVID-19 or not.
But The Illawarra has decided to take its own measures to create some more certainty for its team.
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