88 Days of Farm Work – All your questions answered!

 So you’re loving life in Australia and want to stay for another year? In order to be granted a second-year visa, you will need to complete 88 days of specified work in a regional area - so here are all your questions answered to complete 88 days of farm work on the 417 working holiday maker visa.

What does the specified work include for the 417 working holiday maker visa?

The specific work includes jobs like forestry, mining, solar farms, fishing and some construction but the most popular option by far is plant cultivation, such as fruit picking/packing.

Mining jobs are extremely popular since many of the backpackers got themselves to WA during the pandemic. Mining jobs can be a great way to complete your 88 days of farmwork and make a lot of money, however it may take you longer as the hours are usually 2 weeks on, 1 week off. This would mean you do more hours per week but would only be eligible to count 14 days every 3 weeks. Additionally, the best location to find FIFO work currently is Perth with a small range of jobs in SA and Queensland

88 days or 176 days of Farmwork

We started our 88 days of farmwork just 3 weeks into our time in Australia back in 2018. It meant we could get it out of the way at the start and never have to think about it again - or so we thought! We loved that we made this decision, as we were able to just concentrate on fun things for the rest of our first year in Oz but it’s all good if you do it at another stage, it just needs to be completed before your first-year visa is up, so make sure you give yourself time.

Australia now offers working holiday makers the opportunity to extend their working holiday visa for the third year, so long as you are willing to work a further 6 months in a 'specified job'. When this was first declared as an option, we were roundtripping WA and it honestly sounded like our worst nightmare! Why on earth would we want to do 88 days of formwork again, TWICE? However, like many, we fell in love with Australia. We loved the opportunity to make a lot of money, in an environment where we could save easily and we also got to work together too. We've now been in Australia for 4 years and have spent about 2 years of that doing formwork, the other half we lived in Sydney and have travelled a LOT.

Formwork isn't for everyone, especially if you are unfortunate enough to get a bad one at the beginning (like us, the piece rate wasn't easy!). So we're here to help you find the best 88 days formwork jobs, get paid well and make lots of money doing it!

"How much time do I need to complete 88 days of farm work?"

Always give yourself more than 88 days to complete it.

Farm work is unpredictable. Sometimes the work can stop due to weather conditions or the season can end prematurely. It took us 4 months to complete ours and we know people who have taken much longer.

Looking for farm work can be quite daunting, as there are a lot of horror stories out there so we’re here to help that process be a little less scary and confusing. We had a sound experience throughout our farm work, albeit sometimes making little money but we came away with no poisonous bites, no horror stories and we regularly got a sausage sizzle on the farms too!

"How to calculate 88 days of formwork Australia"

So the best way to calculate your 88 days of formwork, is to work full time at a minimum of 38 hours a week. This enables you to count 7 days towards your 88 days formwork. However, if you work less than 38 hours a week, you can only count the number of full-time 7.6-hour days that you actually worked. There are some helpful apps which can calculate the days for you too, such as 88 days.

You also don’t have to do the 88 days straight, they can be split up however you like and with as many farms as you like. We personally, ge4t a little bored after 2 months. So it keeps things interesting if you switch it up. Of course, if you find a great farm, stick around! We stayed on a farm for 6 months during corvid. 

"How to prove 88 days of formwork"

To prove the 88 days of formwork, you will need to input the number of days you've worked for each job with exact start and end dates. As well as attaching your employment contracts and payslips for each job too. Personally, we simply added a few of the payslips from each job which showed full-time hours. 

We are aware that British citizens do seem to get let off pretty easy with the application process, and some of our friends from South America and Europe are often asked for more information if they haven't attached every single week of work. Something to keep in mind, depending on where you are from.

You could also apply for your second or third-year working holiday visa without doing farmwork. It is possible that it will get granted and you could stay here for three years without doing any farmwork. However, we've also heard of people not getting granted their visa and then the opportunity to stay for a second or third year is gone. It's a big risk that some are willing to take!

"What will I get paid for doing my 88 days of farm work?" 

 There are two main ways to get paid when doing 88 days of farm work.

Piece Rate

This means that you will be paid according to the quantity that you pick/pack. Sometimes it is done by weight and sometimes by units, such as trays filled. The Australia Government have now made it essential that all workers must still receive the national minimum wage regardless of piece rate, which is a fantastic opportunity for new working holiday makers. We worked on a piece rate basis and made about $30 a day most days!

Update for 2022:
There are some jobs available that still offer a piece rate of say, $35 bucket, however, they will still need to pay the minimum hourly wage. We assume this allows the incentive for fast pickers to stick around and get a higher hourly rate, if they are able to pick that fast!

Hourly

Hourly paid farm work will do what it says on the tin and pay you for how many hours you’ve worked rather than the amount you’ve picked/packed. The casual pay rate is around $26.73/hour. We found hourly farmwork hard to find when we started our farmwork journey in 2018. Since then, we've found it pretty easy to find hourly paid work, especially owning a car.

"What’s better, picking or packing?"

So there are two main roles when it comes to backpackers doing their farm work. Either picking or packing. Picking means that you will be out on the field doing the manual labour of picking the fruit/veg. Packing will usually involve being inside a shed, checking the fruits of the pickers labour for any bruises etc and then packing it, ready to send off.

Australia is a bit behind when it comes to stereotypes, so girls are more likely to end up in the shed so that guys can use their ‘Braun’ to do the harder work outside.

When it comes to which one is better, this is down to personal preference but personally, work-wise we preferred picking as it was nice to have the fresh air, feeling yourself getting stronger and fitter as time went by was good and you can usually work whilst listening to music or podcasts. Shed work was boring to us, standing on one spot for hours doing repetitive work and we weren’t allowed to listen to music as attention needed to be paid to the shed machinery. Moneywise though shed work is usually more continuous and can be less affected by weather, so it can get your days down quicker!