Business owners and experts are hoping — and expecting — more people will start returning to work with the Canada Recovery Benefit, or CRB, now concluded.
“We have a hard time getting people, and then the quality of people sometimes isn’t what you need, but you just need some bodies on-site to do the work,” says Dimo Georgakakos, the owner of Gus’ Pub in Halifax. “And sometimes, we have to just shut down a shift in the kitchen because we don’t have anyone to work.”
Georgakakos says his business hasn’t faced a labour shortage in its 60 years of operating.
But Ed McHugh, a business professor at several Halifax universities and NSCC, says things should start to change.
“I think it’ll start to force some people back into the workplace,” he says.
With uncertainty around restrictions, especially earlier on in the COVID pandemic, some workers stayed away from the hospitality sector or left it altogether.
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John Wishart, CEO of the Chamber of Commerce for Greater Moncton, says the ending of CRB and changes to employment insurance (EI) “may lead to a few more people entering the workforce.”
“Our business community needs that,” he says.
Wishart calls the shortages “the number one challenge preventing a full recovery of the economy.”
The Canada Recovery Benefit concluded Saturday, leaving EI or lockdown benefits as two possibilities.
Wishart says there were 30,000 more New Brunswickers recently on EI compared to two years ago. But the shift is starting, and he says a 10-cent minimum wage increase is no longer viable.
“So what is that a livable wage?” he asks. “I know a lot of business owners who tell me, ‘look, there’s no way I can offer $12 an hour, $14 an hour anymore.’ You know, the starting wage is $15 up to $20.”
McHugh says more “fair policies” are needed when it relates to compensation.
“The problem is that is the payment levels through the jobs, the shortage is in those high, high labour-intensive, low paying jobs,” he says. “The jobs where employers control your hours, you might go in for a two-hour shift and you’re off for three hours, you’re back in for three.”
It is a double-edged sword, though, because many businesses, especially restaurants, are still trying to recover from COVID-19’s impacts, Wishart says.
He says a lack of immigration throughout the pandemic is another factor in the shortages.
Now, with the end of the CRB, businesses are looking forward to the future.
“We’re expecting things to turn around once the incentives to not work sort of go away,” Georgakakos says.
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