Australian property mogul's strategy to deal with 'arrogant' workers faces massive backlash

An Australian multi-millionaire stoked a controversy after he called for unemployment to increase to put the “arrogant” workers in their place.

While speaking at the Australian Financial Review’s (AFP) Property Summit on Tuesday (Sept 12), the 41-year-old gym trainer-owner-real estate mogul, Tim Gurner, said that the Covid pandemic brought down the productivity level as “people decided they didn't really want to work so much”.

Gurner further claimed that the change in productivity has negatively impactedthe real estate sectorwhich, along with tougher regulations, is contributing to a housing shortage in Australia.

Add WION as a Preferred Source

The businessman then went on to propose that the country’s unemployment rate should rise by 40-50 per cent from the current rate of 3.7 per cent to bring down the "arrogance in the employment market", which means that more than 200,000 people could lose their jobs.

'Want to see pain'

“We need to see the pain in the economy,” Gurner said, taking aim at the post-Covid work rates of construction labourers,

“We need to remind people they work for the employer, not the other way around.”

The video of Gurner’s remarks during the summit spread like wildfire on social media platforms, drawing sharp criticism from netizens, as well as from Australian MPs.

Comments draw criticism

Labor Party MP Jerome Laxale said they were "comments you'd associate with a cartoon supervillain", while Liberal MP Keith Wolahan said they "could not be more out of touch".

"The loss of a job is not a number. It sees people on the streets and dependent upon food banks," Wolahan told the AFR.

US lawmaker Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez also slammed the property mogul.

"Reminder that major CEOs have skyrocketed their own pay so much that the ratio of CEO-to-worker pay is now at some of the highest levels ever recorded," she wrote on X.

But there were others who concurred with Gurner, saying that the employees have become lax, and weren’t putting much effort as earlier.

"Employees have got used to earning the same amount of money but not putting in the same hours," Minerals Council of Australia chairman Andrew Michelmore told the AFR.

WATCH WION LIVE HERE