Summer has not started and at Hotel 71, as in many establishments in the Quebec region, there is a lack of employees. The management was able to recruit foreign workers, who now make up almost a fifth of the hotel’s workforce.
For the summer, it will be necessary to find nearby. And with a record unemployment rate of 1.7% in April, the lowest of any metropolitan area in Canada and two and a half times lower than Montreal, attracting the ten employees missing to complete the team is quite a challenge. .
“We are short of valets, receptionists, housekeeping staff. Managers need to get involved. We regularly check in and out or pick up cars for customers!” says General Manager Mathieu Savard.
The hotelier confides that the shortage makes him dizzy. For housekeeping, there are subcontractors, but he would like to see applications from students.
“I don’t know where they are! We hardly see any more! We almost immediately hire people who present themselves well and who have the desire to learn,” he says.
On job search sites like Indeed and Glassdoor, more than 15,000 jobs are posted in the region, across all industries.
“Historically, the unemployment rate tends to weaken during the summer, so yes it could be that a new low is reached in the coming months,” analyzes economist Sébastien MacMahon at iA.
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All sectors affected
At Premier Aviation, which does aircraft maintenance, around 30 positions are open, or almost 20% of the company’s workforce. The most difficult employees to recruit are aeronautical technicians, since they must hold a license from Transport Canada. It is therefore impossible to use temporary foreign workers.
“We have to use contract workers, which is much more expensive. I have people from Ontario and the Maritimes. We do business with companies that hire staff,” explains Sylvain Perron, Chief Operating Officer.
You have to pay accommodation and food expenses for these workers who come from afar and this has an impact on the company’s profitability.
“We absorb the note. Otherwise, we would no longer be competitive,” says the entrepreneur, whose competitors are found all over the world.
What to do next? Mr. Perron has invited the École des métiers de l’aérospatiale de Montréal to open a class on his premises and he offers paid internships, which allows him to retain young people who want to stay in Québec.
At the CHU de Québec, one of the largest employers in the region, with 15,000 workers, job postings are permanent in about ten professions or trades, such as nurse, orderly or respiratory therapist. For clinical jobs, recruitment often takes place during studies, up to six months before employment. Cafeteria opening hours are reduced due to lack of staff. The use of overtime is often necessary to ensure accessibility to care and services.
“The CHU deploys extensive recruitment efforts on an ongoing basis, in particular by activating a major recruitment campaign here and internationally, and conducts up to 5,000 interviews per year,” said Michèle Schaffner-Junius, spokesperson.
Unemployment rate April 2023
- Quebec metropolitan area: 1.7%
- Montreal metropolitan area: 4.6%
- Province of Quebec: 4.1%
- Canada: 5.0%
Tourism industry seeks 34,000 employees
The needs of the tourism industry, which runs at full speed in the summer in Quebec, will put even greater pressure on the job market in the coming months.
At the end of the first quarter of 2023, there were already 34,000 vacancies in this industry. In Quebec City, in the accommodation sector alone, there are currently 1,200 vacant positions. But hoteliers encourage each other, it is half as much as in 2022.
“Last year, demand was strong, but the industry didn’t have the capacity to supply, so we lost 5 to 10 percentage points in hotel occupancy rates due to labor shortages. of work,” says Robert Mercure, CEO of Destination Québec Cité.
The equilibrium unemployment rate in a country is around 6%. Canada is below and obviously, the region of Quebec is in real imbalance at 1.7%.
“On the economic front, it is clear that some losses could be generated by employers who are unable to fully operate due to the lack of workers,” said economist Maëlle Boulais-PRésault at Desjardins, who anticipates a rise. vacancies in the summer.
Creativity is key
There is no magic bullet to reduce the pressure, it is the combination of a large amount of effort that allows companies to continue to serve customers.
“The tourism industry is hyperactive. We are even going to integrate 1,000 asylum seekers a year for three years. They are on the territory and have a work permit, awaiting refugee status. We support them for francization and training, ”explains Xavier Gret at the Quebec Council for Human Resources in Tourism (CQRHT), which also held an open house last week to publicize the jobs available.
The Charlevoix, Lanaudière and Laval regions offer industry employees discounts at tourist attractions to make their sector more attractive.
In Quebec City, Destination Quebec City has joined forces with Katimavik to bring young people from other Canadian provinces into immersion. They are offered a job in tourism and French lessons.
Jobs in tourism in Quebec
- 2023: 316,000
- 2022: 267,000
- 2019: 349,000