BC Hospitality Sector Employment Issues Benefit Tech Sector

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Russell Yearwood traded sling cocktails at a catered event to program digital robotics for tech startups in Vancouver during the pandemic.

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He’s had a decent career as a bartender and server for more than a decade and says he has no plans to go back.

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“The money was really good and the servings were very lucrative. But you know, that uncertainty, the inability to control the direction of the income, was a big factor in making the switch,” Yearwood said. He spoke about losing his job in Kelowna during the pandemic.

New Angus Reed Institute Research Finds Only Yearwood Has Swapped Trays And Cocktail Shakers For Keyboards And Coding After “Hanging Into The Wall” Suddenly Losing Their Jobs In 2020 It was not.

During Canada’s post-lockdown recovery, it quickly became apparent that many service workers were not returning to hospitality. showed that 18% of them did not return to their previous jobs.

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According to the survey, this coincides with a 15% increase in respondents who say they have switched careers in the technology sector.

“I can’t draw the exact line and I can’t point to a one-for-one exchange, but when you look at the winners and losers from different industry perspectives, what the service sector loses is what the tech sector gains.” Angus Shachi Karl, President of Reed Institute, said:

It also explains some of the complexity underlying B.C.’s unemployment rate, which fell from 4.8% in August to 4.3% in September despite warnings of a possible recession. help.

Karl said it will be one of the “big known unknowns” about what will happen in the recession and whether job cuts in other sectors will increase the pool of available service workers.

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But for now, the hospitality message is clear, Karl said. “People are really voting with their feet,” he said, not returning to work in the hospitality sector.

And it confirms the observations of hospitality industry leaders, who fear too many workers will not return after the wave of uncertainty brought on by the pandemic.

B.C.’s hospitality department estimates that more than 20,000 people have left since the pandemic, and industry leaders say they need to focus on the aspect of choosing a facility as an employer.

This means offering better wages, benefits and more consistency in training and shifts to address some of the sector-specific uncertainties.

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Hospitality workers don’t always leave en masse for tech jobs, according to Ming Yang, owner of the Honolulu coffee chain’s three Vancouver locations.

Some people in her circle of acquaintances are trying to find jobs that allow them to work from home or turn their side hustle into a full-time job.

“So compared to working in the rather traditional hospitality industry, it’s not so popular anymore,” she said.

Yang said it is currently difficult to recruit experienced staff, but her sense is that more hospitality workers are moving to British Columbia from other provinces.

Yearwood, who was working in hospitality while taking college courses, was working towards a career change.

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He started in business courses, but switched to science, which led him to computer programming.

It was the pandemic that forced him to change.

“I had nowhere to go. I had no income[in hospitality]anywhere,” Yearwood said. That steered him in the direction of his program career at the training firm Lighthouse Labs.

Yearwood finds the work he is currently doing for Vancouver-based startup Quandri more challenging and satisfying.

For the hospitality industry to improve hiring prospects, employers need to overhaul their tipping systems with better, more transparent accounting so the pressure to complete basic bookkeeping isn’t downloaded to their servers. Yes, added Yearwood.

depenner@postmedia.com

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