The head of the North Shore Business Improvement Association says businesses on the Tranquille Corridor have had trouble bringing back employees.

About three-quarters of businesses on the Tranquille Corridor laid off staff because of the COVID-19 pandemic. That’s according to a block report called “Bring Back Main Street,” funded by Vancity Credit Union, which looked at neighborhoods in Vancouver, Victoria, Surrey, Hamilton, Toronto and the Kamloops North Shore and how they’ve fared during the pandemic.

Jeremy Heighton says some employees haven’t wanted to come back, mostly, because they are better off collecting CERB from the government.

“We also discovered that significant portions of businesses laid off employees. Especially when you’re a mom and pop shop, you tend to take care of your family first. And unfortunately employees get laid off because you don’t have the economic capacity in your organization,” he said.

“So one of the big questions we have to ask is, how do we bring them back?”

Heighton points out people can only collect six payments of CERB, and there may be an influx of people wanting to go back to work very soon.

“How do you compete with a $2,000-dollar-a-month payment? This is one of those challenges that will have to be overcome in the next few weeks. We will see some kind of a need for a redefinition of benefits as we move forward… So then the question becomes, well now all of the employees are going to come back and try and find work.”