The hotel industry in Nova Scotia has faced a lot of downs since 2020.
It was one of the first, and hardest hit industries during the height of the pandemic. It’s also been one of the slowest to recover, even as Covid cases have dropped and travellers are coming back in.
But now they are facing a problem that began before the pandemic and has only gotten worse: staff shortages.
“It’s something we need help with as soon as possible,” says Megan Delaney, the general manager at Cambridge Suites Hotel Halifax and the president of the Hotel Association of Nova Scotia. “A lot of hotels, unfortunately, are capping the amount of rooms they can sell, because they do not have enough people to service them.”
Delaney says the hospitality industry was hurt by the Covid-19 lockdowns. A lot of staff who had to be laid off didn’t end up coming back when the economy began to reopen.
“The majority of our teams were laid off. And a lot of the team members at hotels have chosen, of course, to move on to other industries,” says Delaney.
“When we put up a posting there aren’t very many applicants. The labour pool just seems to be getting smaller and smaller for our industry.”
This issue isn’t just confined to Nova Scotia. Phil Mondor, the President of Tourism HR Canada say hotels across the country are struggling to find workers.
“The industry is facing chronic shortages of workers. The word chronic is very deliberate; it means this is a longstanding issue,” says Mondor.
“Moving forward, we expect to see continued chronic shortages, for various reasons.”
Mondor explained that some issues were caused by the pandemic- such as a lack of hours available and unstable employment opportunities. But other issues are more complex, such as changing demographics.
“It’s just demographics-aging population, with fewer younger people coming into the workforce,” he said.
The demographic problem is compounded in a region like Nova Scotia, where there are a lot of rural areas to be served.
“When you have businesses in rural areas in particular, the numbers of people you can draw from… is far more scarce than you would have in a larger centre,” said Mondor.
Hotels and tourism have also lost a lot of workers to other industries, such as healthcare, since it has taken the hospitality sector so long to recover.
“Because they’ve been able to recover at a more rapid-pace, because restrictions didn’t impact them as much, they were quick to gobble up a lot of our workers,” said Mondor.
Even though there is a shortage of workers in all positions, Mondor says the void is particularly large in frontline workers (such as housekeepers and culinary staff) and in operational management.
Coming out of the pandemic, many sectors are facing a shortage of workers. Commentators say it’s a sign employees need to get paid more to entice them back to these jobs. So, is it a question of hotels just offering more money?
“There is room for wage increases. We are talking about that and promoting that more-you’re hearing that in every other industry, because costs have gone up,” said Mondor.
“You’ll also see the costs to the consumer go up.”
But Mondor cautions that it is false to suggest that frontline workers at hotels all receive low wages. He claims the average housekeeper across Canada receives a wage between $18-$22 per hour.
“Wage alone isn’t what’s going to solve this problem. There are many different reasons why people will choose to go to work and stay with an employer.”
Delaney, meanwhile, says there will have to be a marketing push to entice people into the industry. She believes the pandemic has made the hotel and hospitality sector look diminished. Delaney wants people to know how many great opportunities while working inside hotels.
“This is a compounded issue with the pandemic, how we were the first impacted with the shutdowns and had to lay a lot of people off…I think it left a bit of a name for ourselves as a ‘have-not’ industry. It’s going to take a long time to work on our reputation again.”
