18/02/2026
FIFO Workers Have It Easy? Yeah, Nah. **Sharing from another site**
Was sitting in the lounge waiting for my flight home after a 2 week swing. Dead on my feet. Eyes hanging out of my head. Still got dust in places I didn't know I had places.
Two blokes in suits next to me, coffees in hand, having a good old laugh about how "easy" FIFO workers have it.
"Two weeks on, a whole week off! Must be nice!"
Mate. Must be nice having absolutely no idea what you're talking about.
So I went home and did the maths. Because clearly no one else has.
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Let's compare a 2/1 FIFO roster to your standard 9-5 Monday to Friday gig.
Your average Joe working 9-5 with 4 weeks annual leave works 48 weeks a year.
A FIFO worker on a 2/1 with 2 weeks leave works about 31 weeks a year.
Looks cruisy right? Yeah hold that thought.
That FIFO worker does 7 days a week, not 5. So that's 217 days on site compared to Joe's 240.
Still not bad you reckon? Alright keep going.
FIFO does 12 hour shifts minimum. Most of us are doing closer to 13 or 14 by the time you add pre-starts, travel to the pit, and end of shift handovers. But let's be generous and say 12.
Joe does his 8 hours and heads home for a cold one.
So here it is:
Joe works roughly 1,920 hours a year.
FIFO clocks roughly 2,604 hours. Minimum.
Now convert that back to 8 hour days like Joe's and that FIFO worker is doing the equivalent of 325 eight-hour days a year.
Put that into a 5 day work week and your "lucky" FIFO worker is actually working the equivalent of 65 weeks in a 52 week year.
😳
We work more weeks than actually exist in a calendar year.
But sure, we have it easy.
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Now let's talk about what the spreadsheet doesn't show.
While Joe goes home every night to his family, FIFO spends 217 nights away from theirs. That's not a number. That's missed bedtime stories. That's your kid's first steps happening on a FaceTime call that keeps dropping out because camp wifi is cooked. That's your Mrs handling everything on her own and trying not to lose it. That's your partner quietly wondering if this is even worth it anymore.
You miss birthdays. You miss anniversaries. You miss funerals. Your kid does their first school play and you're sitting in a crib room 2000km away eating reheated lasagna at 3am wondering why you do this to yourself.
And when you finally get home after up to 14-17 hours of travel... bus to the airport, flight, layover, another flight, drive home... you walk through the door looking like an extra from The Walking Dead. Your body clock is smashed because you've just come off nights. You spend the first two days trying to remember what day it is and how to be a normal human being again. Your week off turns into 4 or 5 actual usable days before the anxiety of going back kicks in.
And you do it all again. And again. And again.
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Now add the stuff no one talks about.
The mental health toll. The relationships that don't survive. The blokes who seem fine on site but are falling apart inside. The mates we've lost... and I don't just mean to redundancies.
The constant drug and alcohol testing, the medicals, the zero tolerance policies where one wrong move and you're on the next plane home with no job.
The 40+ degree heat. The red dust that never washes out. The monotony of driving the same loop for 12 hours straight trying to stay awake. The camps where your "room" is a glorified shipping container and the walls are thin enough to hear your neighbour's alarm go off at 4am.
The fact that we do one of the most physically and mentally demanding jobs in the country, in some of the most remote and unforgiving places on earth, and blokes in pressed shirts reckon we've got it easy because they saw a roster and thought a week off meant a holiday.
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A week off isn't a holiday mate. It's recovery.
It's trying to cram being a dad, a partner, a mate, and a functioning member of society into 5 usable days before you pack your bag and do it all over again.
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So next time you're sitting in that airport lounge, coffee in hand, and you see some knackered looking bloke in hi-vis and steel caps with bloodshot eyes and a thousand yard stare maybe don't tell your mate how easy he's got it.
Because that bloke just did more hours in 2 weeks than you do in a month. And he's about to go home and try to be everything to everyone in the few days he's got before he does it all again.
FIFO workers don't have it easy. Neither do their families. We make sacrifices that most people will never understand so we can provide a better life for the people we love.
And honestly? Most of us wouldn't change it. But don't you dare call it easy.
Share this if you've lived it. Share it for the ones still out there doing it tough. And share it so the next bloke in a suit thinks twice before running his mouth. 👊
