McDonald’s, Burger King and other Tim Hortons in the regions can hardly do without foreign workers. Both in Outaouais and on the North Shore, passing through the villages of Lac-Saint-Jean, employees from all over the world take our orders or prepare our dishes quickly. Portrait of an industry in transformation.
Rebecca Marron left her native Philippines at the age of 23 for a job as a cook in a famous fast food chain… in Sept-Îles. “When I arrived here, I just wanted to work, nothing else,” she says in French, 10 years after this move. The perspective of pinball dumplings on the other side of the world didn’t bother her. The salary offered in Quebec is three times what she can expect to earn in Southeast Asia. “When you work in the Philippines, it’s just a day off. Here, it’s two days off. There are a lot of advantages, a lot of benefits. »
Like her, thousands of immigrants work in fast food chains across the country. In Sept-Îles, moreover, all the chains in the north coastal city hire foreign workers. Even the local snack bar, which is not a franchise, employs five Mexican women.
Without having carried out an exhaustive compilation, THE Duty observed that hiring international workers has become the norm rather than the exception in fast food establishments in most regions of Quebec.
In 2017, temporary foreign workers held 7.2% of the total number of jobs in the restaurant industry, and there is every indication that their role has continued to grow since then. The countries of origin are diversifying just as much. Rebecca Marron, who, in 10 years, went from cook to franchise owner, claims to have recently “hired Africans, Thais, Cubans”.
A hungry industry
The restaurant world is hungry for reinforcements. Restaurant Canada lists 78,000 vacant positions in commercial kitchens and dining rooms across the country, including 20,000 in Quebec alone. In these circumstances, the use of foreign labor “has grown significantly in recent years,” recognizes Maximilien Roy, vice-president of the association. These establishments are operating at 80% capacity because of a lack of labor, he says, forcing menus to thin out and opening hours to decrease.
“Nearly half of owners [de restaurants] are from immigration. It’s important both for the people who come to work and for those who keep the industry itself going,” he emphasizes.
The labor shortage is even more significant in the countryside, where the lack of personnel is noted “in all sectors of the restaurant industry,” according to Martin Vézina, vice-president of public affairs at the Association Restauration Québec ( ARQ). Without being able to confirm that all fast food brands are filling this shortage internationally, the face of fast food has certainly changed in recent times, he says. “We really see a lot of employers using temporary foreign workers. »
Large fast food brands recruit more because they have an advantage over their small local equivalents, that is to say the financial and administrative support of a parent company. The ARQ also offers discounts to its members from firms that help with recruitment abroad. “No one wakes up in the morning and says ‘I’m going to recruit temporary foreign workers’. […] We do it more out of spite, because there are no other pools [d’employés] available”, nuance Martin Vézina.
“It was that or we closed!” »
McDonald’s and Tim Hortons did not respond to interview requests from Duty, which prevents us from accurately estimating the share of temporary workers in the kitchens of these multinationals. These immigrants are nevertheless essential for franchisees, notes Marie-Josée Carrier, president of the En vue personnel agency, specializing in the hiring of foreign staff in restaurants. “ [De nouveaux travailleurs], it gives breathing space to entrepreneurs. It gives you time to breathe,” she explains in an interview. “It creates a core that attracts better players, because the management improves. »
Several dozen franchisees have already requested its help. As a franchise owner herself, she uses these workers to fill her shifts. “It wasn’t a whim. It was that or we closed! »
The cooks she recruits already have experience behind the stove, she emphasizes, a way of ensuring that they stay in the restaurant business after moving to a country where living conditions are better. “It protects so that the worker stays in the field, so that he does not jump into another job. And then, the learning curve is very fast. »
This sustained growth in the foreign workforce in restaurants has led the federal government to tighten rules for hiring these overseas employees. Since 1er May, the percentage of temporary labor authorized in restaurants was reduced from 30% to 20%, not without causing dismay in the industry.
This report is supported by the Local Journalism Initiative, funded by the Government of Canada.