The President of the Kamloops Chamber of Commerce says a labour shortage that the tourism sector is facing is not a new issue.
However, speaking on the NL Morning News, Dan Carroll says the COVID-19 pandemic has made things worse.
“There’s certainly uncertainty about work environments with COVID over the last years,” he said. “There’s just that general uncertainty out there and then just conditions – affordability, and the ability to attract labour to our region.”
Tourism Kamloops CEO Beverley DeSantis previously told NL News that while there may be pent-up demand for travel some outside the box thinking will be required to bring workers back but notes they’ve had to do it before.
“We need an attraction program that we’ve been working on to get people back. We need to work with the government to incent (sic) people to come back,” she said on the NL Noon Report.
“This industry has been decimated by COVID. Even though we’ve been planning for a year-and-a-half for the launch, it’s here now and we’re kind of seeing we have these heavy steps in front of us.”
Similarly, Ian Tostenson with the BC Restaurant and Foodservices Association says bars and restaurants are no exception with about 40,000 jobs available across the province.
“We are in a labour crisis, both back of the house and now front of the house,” he said on NL Newsday. “A lot of people left the industry because we weren’t dependable employers because we couldn’t be, and then we’ve got a shortage of workers in general in B.C. just because of demographics.”
Carroll says with B.C.’s restart plan underway, there is optimism that the labour issues will improve at least to where things were pre-COVID. But he worries that might not be enough to address the issues locally.
“The Chamber has been working for example with Thompson Rivers University to figure out how we can harness that great facility and all of the talent that goes through TRU to see if we can get some of that talent to stick here in Kamloops,” Caroll added.
“We’re keeping an eye on the federal hiring grant, and we’re constantly working with the city and interest groups to see what we can do create a better environment in Kamloops to attract and keep workers.”