Australian businesses are being forced into a horrible choice between standing down local workers who can get government benefits or migrant workers on visas who have no support and can't get home.

Like thousands of other employers, TGI Fridays' revenue disappeared when the government ordered restaurants shut down. If the company keeps on its migrant workers, rather than Australian workers who benefit from the government's $1500 a fortnight JobKeeper payment, the company will save more than $1.1 million in wages over the next six months.

Nashla Martija, who came to Australia on a 457 visa as a chef at TGI Fridays in Sydney, now faces losing her job and not being able to access welfare. Credit:Janie Barrett

But if its Australian chief executive James Sinclair lays off his 60 migrant workers, which he desperately does not want to do, they will have no access to any income whatsoever. And so Mr Sinclair is begging the government to make visa workers eligible for JobKeeper.

"These are hardworking, outstanding family people," Mr Sinclair said. "They are rightly fearful about their future, they paid tax here, and they can’t leave."