Tourists are back, but not enough staff
Tourists are back in Old Montreal, from other parts of Quebec and elsewhere in Canada, and Americans are expected to return starting next week – but establishments there are finding they don’t have enough staff. Once again an employer is trotted out to blame government aid for keeping people away.
If as an employer you’re not offering a rate that competes favourably with social aid in a time of pandemic, you’ve got to man up and make better offers.
MarcG 09:29 on 2021-08-04 Permalink
I don’t understand how the current situation is different from any other time – hasn’t everyone who was collecting CERB been moved back to regular EI where you have to prove you’ve been looking for work?
Kate 09:30 on 2021-08-04 Permalink
My impression is that EI possibly doesn’t have the staff either to keep on everyone’s case about looking for work, as they used to. The reporting system on the government site doesn’t even ask about job searches.
MarcG 09:34 on 2021-08-04 Permalink
I bet the starting salaries are pretty good over there and you can probably work from home – they should start hiring!
AShandy 10:16 on 2021-08-04 Permalink
“If as an employer you’re not offering a rate that competes favourably with social aid in a time of pandemic, you’ve got to man up and make better offers.”
With all due respect, you have no clue how the CERB distorts the marketplace for labour, creating artificial shortages because some people are happy getting paid to do nothing when there are jobs out there for the taking, and how this skewing of the marketplace will affect you in terms of inflation where you are and will be paying higher prices for basic commodities.
The employers being “trotted out” have a point. You, on the other hand, are totally clueless.
steph 10:29 on 2021-08-04 Permalink
the EI job search reporting system was junk anyways. Anyone could just apply for any unqualified million dollar CEO job, and that was good enough as proof you were looking for work.
The pandemic is bringing new living lifestyles, and that will cause a bunch of inflation adjustments in different sectors. Tourism will obviously be more expensive.
MarcG 10:42 on 2021-08-04 Permalink
Ok, so then if nothing has changed, then what has changed? Did the pandemic just make a bunch of people aware that they could collect EI instead of get a shitty job?
j2 10:51 on 2021-08-04 Permalink
The employers don’t have a point, otherwise there would be people willing to take the wages. The problem is that the people who did that work moved on to jobs that were there when these jobs were gone. Go visit a bar or restaurant that retained staff for _years_ and look at the fresh faces and for the missing faces. The missing faces LIKED working there.
You’re not paying in the same market anymore, the current market NOW is “pay me enough that when you get shut down by the government that I’m not fucked”.
mare 10:59 on 2021-08-04 Permalink
Funny how commenters are fuming about the CERB, when the last month that was in place was in October 2020. Currently there is the CRB, which is basically EI, but related to your changed income levels because of Covid, compared week by week. Keep up with the terminology guys!
(I’m not qualifying for those myself, having worked freelance with a very variable income week over week, despite of the fact that income has dropped considerably. But I’m also not available for a job in the service industry either, partly because of various medical issues. Thankfully I have savings.)
IMHO One of the reasons, maybe the main reason, of the worker shortage is that out-of-town students that would normally would have staid in the city for the summer, have not been in Montreal for a while. So instead of having jobs in Montreal restaurants and stores to pay for their studies, they might be working in their hometowns instead. And on top of that, happening before Covid, is Quebec’s economy booming. We haven’t made enough babies and limit immigration, the demographic curve is now hitting hard. That was happening before Covid-19, but I know at least a few people who have decided to retire early, sell their house in the city for megabucks and move to the burbs or beyond.
EmilyG 11:33 on 2021-08-04 Permalink
If I were looking for work, I would be turned off by employers blaming CERB or other government aid for staff shortages, and just wouldn’t apply for employers that I knew did this.
Kevin 11:52 on 2021-08-04 Permalink
Anyone who trots out “government benefits are distorting the economy” is looking for a simple solution to a complex problem.
In the best of times many restaurants don’t make it past the three-year mark. In an economy where people can walk into a restaurant, ask for a job, and be put to work immediately — I expect a lot more to fail.
They’re scrambling in a field that in normal times demands logistical brilliance in order to succeed.
It’s routine for badly-run restaurants to have some staff doing 12-hour shifts, and others being sent home 3 hours into what was supposed to be a full day’s work. And people put up with that because what else were they going to do? But a lot of those employees found new fields and more stable work in the past year-and-a-half, and so there are a lot of newbies running establishments who don’t even know how there are best practices for assigning wait staff to tables, let alone what they are.
And now? If you’re sent home after 3 hours, if a manager yells at you for something that’s not your fault, if a customer stiffs you on a bill — you’re not going to put up with that, you’ll find a new job – easily.
Restaurants not only have to pay well and train their staff. They now have to deal with the fact that nobody is going to put up with idiotic managers, abusive owners, and terrible customers.
david874 11:55 on 2021-08-04 Permalink
Especially not going to put up with that if the government is paying them to stay home and play video games.
DeWolf 12:10 on 2021-08-04 Permalink
The CRB pays $1080 per month after the first 21 weeks. Who exactly are all these people sitting at home playing video games with an income that can’t even pay for an average apartment?
Tux 12:37 on 2021-08-04 Permalink
I haven’t commented in awhile so I’m not familiar with the usual poster suspects but the whole “social assistance is bad for the economy” thing feels like astroturfing. What sane person thinks that? People just aren’t willing to risk their lives for minimum wage. Companies that can’t find anyone to work for them can make better offers. If they can’t, maybe they shouldn’t be in business.
Kate 12:50 on 2021-08-04 Permalink
Tux, voilà. Well put.
Tim S. 13:00 on 2021-08-04 Permalink
And maybe we should expect to pay more for the luxury of having a human being perform relatively menial tasks.
Kate 13:14 on 2021-08-04 Permalink
Relatively menial tasks, let’s not forget, still in a mask and taking extra sanitary precautions that were never needed before last year.
steph 07:59 on 2021-08-05 Permalink
I wouldn’t do their job at that salary – I can empathize that they don’t either.
MarcG 09:18 on 2021-08-05 Permalink
Don’t worry, AShandy and David and their ilk will surely get out there and take one, two, maybe three of those jobs since it matters so much to them.
Uatu 19:56 on 2021-08-05 Permalink
The dish pit awaits for all you go getters!
EmilyG 06:41 on 2021-08-06 Permalink
Relevant Toronto Star article, by a restaurant worker, on how the CERB isn’t to blame for restaurant staff shortages.
https://www.thestar.com/opinion/contributors/2021/08/05/as-a-server-hearing-others-blame-cerb-on-restaurant-staff-shortages-is-dehumanizing-if-an-industry-is-harmful-why-blame-low-wage-workers.html