For New Zealanders working overseas in “fly in-fly out” jobs, it’s easier to win Lotto than book a spot in MIQ and then line up flights home, one Kiwi at an African diamond mine says.
So-called FIFO (fly in-fly out) workers have long endured harsh conditions in areas such as Australia’s mines in return for often lucrative pay.
But Covid-19 border closures threw a spanner in the works, and even the trans-Tasman travel bubble means quarantines are not off the table if there is an outbreak in Australia or Aotearoa New Zealand.
Corrie van Wyk lives in Greymouth, but is on a rostered fly in, fly out contract as a production manager at a diamond mine in Sierra Leone, meaning he has two months at work and one month off.
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