Sask. hospitality industry facing work shortage heading into summer

Saskatchewan’s hospitality industry is hoping to see more people start their careers with offers of training and upskilling.

The industry has been facing a slow recovery as a result of COVID-19.

Jim Bence, CEO of Hospitality Saskatchewan, said hundreds of thousands of workers were laid off from the industry 25 months ago.

“That’s when the labour shortage became acute,” Bence said, though it was not when the industry began facing a shortage of employees.

Bence said the labour pool has always been shallow for the industry, and it became more difficult after COVID layoffs when staff became retrained to enter into other industries for work.

The layoffs also left higher management positions, who were able to keep their positions, cleaning rooms and filling a larger number of roles themselves.

Now, the province is investing $1 million to promote careers in the hospitality sector to assist the industry.

As summer nears, Bence said more jobs in tourism and hospitality become available, adding to more than 4,000 job opportunities already available in Saskatchewan.

Bence said the industry is “exceptional” at training people, and the skills learned are transferable.

The priorities for the hospitality sector, heading into summer months, focus on two phases, Bence said.

He said now is the best time to join the industry because of the training opportunities, and opportunities to quickly advance into supervisory and management positions, as current employees get burned out and vacancies need to be filled.

First, there’s an active “all hands on deck” attitude to feature the vibrant Saskatchewan tourism industry with the staff they have.

Second, Bence said a significant focus will be put on engaging employees in training and equipping them with any skills they would like to learn that would allow them to fill industry positions.