While Australia has experienced low COVID-19 case numbers relative to other countries, it has witnessed severe economic consequences in the wake of the pandemic. The hospitality industry, in which young adults are overrepresented, has been among the most affected industries. In this article, we present findings from an interview and a digital methods-based study of young hospitality workers in the Australian cities of Melbourne and Newcastle who lost shifts or employment due to the pandemic. We argue that the participants’ ability to cope with the loss of work was mediated by the degree of family support that they could access, with some experiencing the pandemic as an inconvenience, while others suffered extreme financial hardship. Findings from this study show that the most severe impacts of the pandemic play out along pre-existing lines of inequality and marginality, causing the most severe consequences for those who were already most vulnerable to them.

尽管与其他国家相比，澳大利亚的 COVID-19 病例数较少，但在大流行之后却见证了严重的经济后果。青年人占多数的酒店业是受影响最严重的行业之一。在本文中，我们展示了对澳大利亚城市墨尔本和纽卡斯尔因大流行而失去轮班或工作的年轻酒店工人的采访和基于数字方法的研究的结果。我们认为，参与者应对失业的能力受他们可以获得的家庭支持程度的影响，其中一些人将大流行视为不便，而另一些人则遭受了极端的经济困难。