The Sweetest Jobs campaign which aims to attract Australian workers to thousands of seasonal strawberry picking jobs has placed just 53 people, with another 40 to 50 locals directly approaching farms to secure employment.
But the Queensland Strawberry Growers Association said it was happy with the result of the Sweetest Jobs campaign, given a late launch, a very slow start to the season, and the fact that only 10 farms were involved with the pilot project.
Just 10 years ago, 90 per cent of south-east Queensland's strawberry workforce were locals but now backpackers fill most of the 6,000 to 8,000 jobs created each year.
"We had a really good response to the employment drive, the media was brilliant, and we got the word out there that there are a lot of jobs within the strawberry industry," industry development officer Jennifer Rowling said.
Since the program was launched at the end of May, 2,144 people have registered on the Sweetest Jobs website.
But the drop-off rate from the internet interest was brutal, with fewer than half of them filling out a survey form seeking details to better match them to farms.
Of the 1,073 people who filled out the surveys, only 126 were interviewed and 53 secured work.
