CEO'S REPORT
by James Chase

The time to take action is now. Hoteliers are bracing for another year of staffing shortages and the mid to long-term outlook will hinge on the success of organizations such as ours to push the government toward improving access to foreign workers.

Closer to home, hoteliers are best positioned and most effective at identifying and recruiting local labour pools in their respective communities. Many hoteliers have taken the initiative by developing good working relationships with high schools, community colleges, and non-traditional labour pools such as people with disabilities and First Nations. 

These outreach activities are necessary in the short term but insufficient in the long run. With over a million new job openings expected over the next twelve years, and only 650,000 people in the K-12 school system, meeting labour demand will be a challenge for all industries, including hotels. By 2011, it is expected that the majority of Canada’s labour force growth will be from immigration.

With these sobering statistics in mind, the most rational deployment of resources and energy for the BC Hotel Association is securing access to labour pools outside provincial and national borders. Outside of BC, our focus will be on recruitment through job fairs.

In late February, the BC Hotel Association participated in a one-week job fair in southern Ontario to promote the BC hotel industry and recruit new workers. Southern Ontario offers a dense population, a large, work-ready labour force and a largely untapped market for many hoteliers. 

Our second priority is to source long-term labour pools outside the country. Our lobbying efforts paid off last fall with the federal announcement to streamline the processing of job applications through the Temporary Foreign Worker Program. More recently, the BCHA cooperated with the BC government to formalize a new partnership with the Philippines to recruit foreign workers.

To take advantage of either of these two opportunities, hotel employers must step up to the plate and apply for foreign workers. A good place to start is our online employment service program called RoomServiceCanada.ca. Hoteliers should also consider calling the BC Hotel Association to communicate their recruiting and retention challenges. We can help to simplify and direct your recruitment initiatives.