Tourism here needs 84,000 new jobs by 2015
Those who want to keep working may be able to dictate on what terms. Many restaurants are already offering flexible hours to fit students’ schedules and smart managers realize that in order to maintain low turnover, fair wages and better conditions are key.
The B.C. retail industry, which employs more than 250,000 people, is also short of workers, with some tourism-oriented retailers offering bonuses to employees who stay for a certain amount of time.
“The situation is being felt very dearly,” Arlene Keis, CEO of go2, the human resources association for B.C.’s tourism industry, said in an interview. “The winter operators are now recruiting and they’re already finding less and less applicants.”
Keis said the B.C.’s tourism sector will need an additional 84,000 new jobs by 2015 – and the employees to staff them. She said 32 per cent of tourism’s workforce is between 15 and 24 years of age, compared to 15 per cent in other industries. “And that demographic is shrinking.”
She said other factors are the province’s booming economy and opportunities in other sectors, like the oil and gas industry and construction. “It means there’s lots of opportunity for (tourism) entrepreneurs to start a new business.”
Keis said wages and benefits are improving in the sector – “there are very few minimum wage jobs now” – and the industry is also looking to seniors and aboriginal people to help fill the void.
But she also suggested the industry could do more. It’s a good time for employers to look in the mirror, to look at retention. We have to increase training and investment.”
Tiffany Bader, 29, studied sociology at the University of B.C. for several years before realizing on a trip to Europe that she really wanted to be a chef.
Today, after attending a culinary program at Vancouver College, she is working as an apprentice chef at the Hotel Vancouver as part of a three-year Culinary Apprentice Program offered by Fairmont Hotels & Resorts.
“I worked in a few restaurants, but I applied to (this) hotel because they’re paying for my schooling,” said Bader in an interview. “I don’t think this is going to be a career path that will peter out. And I know that if it does slow down in Vancouver, I can move to another Fairmont around the world.”
Bader said she’s very happy working with Fairmont, because of the pay and benefits.
However she feels the other restaurants will have to “step up to the plate” by providing better benefits to retain cooks.
Fairmont spokesman Jill Killeen said in an interview that the labour shortage is real and that Fairmont is working to attract talent.
“It’s getting tougher to get people, but programs like this help get the word out that we have opportunities for young people in the industry. It’s no longer sufficient to put an advertisement in the newspaper. We are going out to the schools to let them know they have an opportunity to develop a career here. We interview them, but they interview us too.
“We now have 15 culinary apprentices in five hotels in B.C.”
Keith Sashaw, president of the Vancouver Regional Construction Association, which represents 670 businesses involved in the construction work throughout the Lower Mainland, said in an interview that it’s the same industry. “The construction industry is facing critical shortages of skilled workers. We expect it to be unchanged through 2007 and 2008.”
Sashaw cited several reasons for the shortage, including the strength of the economy, the aging workforce and a shortage a qualified young people. “By 2010 Olympics, there will be over one million more job openings in all sectors. But there are only 600,000 students graduating from high school.”
Add to that, he said, is the 2010 Olympics, which was like “someone turning on the tap and the floodgates opened.”
He said there are about 90,000 employees in the Lower Mainland’s construction industry today, compared to about 64,000 in January 2004. “We need another 25,000 between now and 2010.”
Sashaw said that the industry is addressing the problem by targeting under-represented groups like aboriginal Canadians and promoting the industry in schools as a career alternative to students. “We’ve trained over 300 aboriginal youth over the last year and a half.”
However, another proposal – hiring temporary foreign workers, a measure Sashaw calls “a necessary tool to meet the demand” – is meeting considerable resistance, especially from unions.
The B.C. Federation of Labour, for example, recently challenged industry and analysts’ claims of a skilled labour shortage in the province as it moved to block a contractor’s application to bring in a temporary foreign workers to build the $800 million Golden Ears Bridge.
The federation charged that German-based Bilfinger Berger, part of the golden crossing constructors joint venture that is building the bridge, rejected bids from several Canadian companies to install steel for the project, and instead is looking abroad for cheaper labour.
Bilfinger Berger representatives said it had no intention of hiring foreign workers at cut-rate wages.
However, the federation said some 100 qualified Canadians have applied to work on the project, adding that there are enough workers who could be brought in from other parts of Canada to build the bridge, and meet the needs of various other projects around the province amid the current construction boom.
“This is about cheap labour, not a labour shortage,” federation president Jim Sinclair said. “The company doesn’t want to pay the going rate. They want to undercut Canadian contractors, Canadian workers and pay less.”
Golden Crossing Constructors is expected to finish the Golden Ears Bridge project by 2009. It will connect the TransCanada highway with Lougheed highway across the Fraser River.
According to the Construction Sector Council, a federally funded partnership of the construction industry and government, 1.5 per cent of the construction labour force across Canada is retiring annually and by 2015 the number of retirees will exceed the number of new entrants.
Other findings by the Council:
*Canada’s mining industry will be short 81,000 employees over the next 10 years.
*Over the next 15 years, Canada’s manufacturing sector will require an estimated 400,000 workers due to retirement.
In B.C. the council said:
*Activity in residential construction will remain strong, with new housing investment peaking in 2010.
*Potential for mobility from other regions is limited by strong construction markets in other regions is limited by strong construction markets in other provinces.
*Project delays, costs issues and worker safety are a growing concern.
*Trades facing above average replacement demands are: boilermakers, bricklayers, construction managers and supervisors, crane operators and heavy equipment operators.