Sun 2 Mar 2008
Believe it or not, there’s a labour shortage here
EVERYONE has heard stories about Newfoundland and Labrador workers fleeing to Alberta to find jobs, and bank economists insisting that the province’s economy is “leading the country in economic growth” while unemployment is still the highest in the country.
You would not think this is good news for workers in Newfoundland. In general, it’s not, especially in the skilled trades and professions.
Yet, in a backhanded way it means for the first time in the 500-year history of Newfoundland commerce workers have options and are no longer just “lucky to have a job” (a common phrase heard by all wage slaves here) at the mercy of minimum wage employers with hundreds of resumes on their desks.
Enough people have now left Newfoundland to cause a labour shortage.
If you had been shopping or eating out in St. John’s this past year you would have noticed a sprouting of Help Wanted signs in the retail outlets, restaurants and for other service sector jobs. Every couple of store windows on Water St. have hand scrawled pleas to fill jobs. Hard to believe, but there is a labour shortage in St. John’s.
Now, before you pack up the U-Haul and the kids and head for the ferry at North Sydney, consider the reason for these job openings.
People leave these jobs because they are the lowest-paid, lowest-benefits jobs available and let’s be honest, not all employers are created equal. Of course, there are some good ones but, sadly, too many Newfoundland employers still harbour the “merchant” mentality towards their workers.
These jobs are the first to be abandoned when better prospects present themselves.
Those prospects are now in Alberta, British Columbia and Yellowknife. If you have to work in retail, you might as well do it in Grande Prairie, Alta., for $15-20 per hour plus benefits instead of $7.50 and no benefits in Mount Pearl, N.L. Besides, that’s where all your family and friends are anyway.
The provincial government says it will raise the minimum wage to $10 per hour over the next two years and that has the Newfoundland and Labrador Employers Council howling in pain. They say there is no way they can stay in business if they have to pay a minimum wage that high.
Maybe they should ask themselves how can they stay in business if they don’t.
Some employers still have their heads in the sand and can’t accept that they will now have to compete for workers by offering better wages and benefits. If they don’t they can wave good-bye to their workers as they head across the big-box parking lot to a better employer . . . or the packed U-Haul truck.
Two members of the Employers Council were on a radio talk show recently moaning that they can’t understand why they can’t keep or get staff when there are so many unemployed people in Newfoundland.
A recent scan of the Service Canada job bank for Newfoundland and Labrador yielded over 500 job postings. Less than a dozen were in the $15 per hour range. The highest paid position offered ($19 per hour) was for an engineer. Over half were minimum wage service jobs or commissioned sales. Another quarter were between $8-10 per hour. The rest offered $11-13 per hour.
The full impact of this little economic tremour hasn’t fully hit yet but by the end of the tourist season this summer you will see a lot of service industry employers hurting.
Newfoundland employers are going to have to wake up or miss the boat . . . the boat carrying their employees to better jobs on the mainland.
http://thechronicleherald.ca/NovaScotian/1041286.html
Newfoundland Diary appears every third week in The NovaScotian. Greg Locke is a journalist and photographer based in St. John’s.
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