The Job Resource Center, which operates in Banff and Canmore, publishes posts and “does not receive a response,” said its director, Michel Dufresne.
“Before March 2020, on a good day, the job center can see 50 to 100 clients,” Dufresne said. But now a good day is about 10 people.
Hotels, retail stores, restaurants, attractions and ski resorts in cities like Banff and Canmore rely heavily on foreign workers, he said, and before the pandemic they made up almost half of their workforce.
He said people in these types of organizations are planning for the summer – when huge numbers of tourists arrive – and are worried.
“What we used to call staff shortages that are common here in Banff and Canmore … at the moment it is no longer shortages, it is drought. It is staff shortages,” he said.
“I keep saying it will improve, it will get better. But I have been saying it for six months now.”
Dufresne said the job center will start receiving more responses when students graduate from university around the end of April.
“People would arrive in May. But what is happening is that we are not receiving the research we used to do.”
He said the shortage could be caused, in part, by the slow processing of applications for international workers.
CBC News recently received data from Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada showing hundreds of thousands pending applications for temporary residence.
It may take 12 to 18 months for a foreign worker to arrive in the country after being selected by an employer, said Trevor Long, president of the Banff and Lake Louise Hospitality Association and manager of the Rimrock Resort Hotel.
“We need to speed up this process,” he said.
Long said there are many affordable housing projects underway in Banff, but more are needed as it is a critical element of staff shortages.
“Certainly housing in Banff is sometimes not ideal,” he told the Calgary Eyeopener.
He also said that additional incentives – such as subsidized housing, subsidized or free meals, ski passes, free access to local public transport and incentives for longevity of employment – could lure employees back.
“We desperately need to fill our workforce immediately. We are coming out of the pandemic by calling the season economic recovery. But if we do not have the staff, we will have a difficult recovery period.”
