'Avocado Toast' Millionaire Very Sorry for Saying 'Arrogant' Workers Should Lose Jobs After Outrage

Tim Gurner, a millionaire Australian housing developer famous for overestimating the impact of avocado toast on millennial household budgets, has apologized for a bizarre and power-mad rant calling for a 50 percent jump in unemployment for “arrogant” workers. 

Gurner said that “we need to see pain in the economy,” and that “we need to remind people that they work for the employer, not the other way around.” He said that there was “arrogance” in the job market that must be stamped out, and that unemployment should rise by 40 or 50 percent. 

“At the AFR Property Summit this week I made some remarks about unemployment and productivity in Australia that I deeply regret and were wrong,” Gurner said in a statement sent to Motherboard by a representative. 

“There are clearly important conversations to have in this environment of high inflation, pricing pressures on housing and rentals due to a lack of supply, and other cost of living issues. My comments were deeply insensitive to employees, tradies and families across Australia who are affected by these cost-of-living pressures and job losses,” Gurner wrote, using the term for tradespeople in Australia.

“I want to be clear: I do appreciate that when someone loses their job it has a profound impact on them and their families and I sincerely regret that my words did not convey empathy for those in that situation.”

A representative from Paper Mill Agency wrote that “This will be Tim Gurner’s only statement, and he will not be commenting further.” 

Gurner’s comments went viral and caused widespread outrage, and even caught the attention of lawmakers in the U.S. and his home of Australia. 

“Reminder that major CEOs have skyrocketed their own pay so much that the ratio of CEO-to-worker pay is now at some of the highest levels *ever* recorded,” U.S. Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez said in a tweet regarding Gurner’s comments. 

While it is unclear what prompted Gurner’s apology, it may have been a healthy fear of the employees who have created his wealth. Australia added 65,000 jobs in August and unemployment is at 3.7 percent, accordingto the Australian Bureau of Statistics. Demand for labor is currently being met, the head of the Bureau said Thursday, but for the past year Australia’s unemployment rate has been at its lowest point in over a decade, despite Gurner’s wishes, giving workers more options if they choose not to work for a man famous for his avocado math.