Recruiters say it’s best time to look for a job amid ‘acute labour shortage’ in Vaughan
But not all job-seekers feeling the boon
Thinking of landing a better paying job with the coveted remote days to spend more time with the loved ones? Recruiters say, ‘Yes,’ alluding to the plethora of opportunities in a “hot market” marred by “acute labour shortage” where potential employees can call the shots.
“Right now, it is a fantastic market for people who are seeking jobs, especially people who are looking for those white-collar, office jobs such as marketing, IT, finance, accounting, those sorts of roles,” said Sara Gregory, president of Recruitment in Motion – North Toronto.
There is a shortage of talent since many people have decided to "step out of their industry, resign or move to something simpler," Gregory added.
York region’s unemployment figure has not returned to its pre-COVID-19 level.
The region saw its 4.4 per cent unemployment rate in 2019 ballooning to 13.7 per cent in July before declining to 8 per cent by the end of 2020. So far, Statistics Canada showed unemployment for York region at 7.6 per cent in September 2021.
Syed Abrar Hussain, director of Ontario operations at Staffmax, explained that some people are opting to stay at home since they were successful in saving their CERB and increased child benefits for the past two years to spend more time with family.
“Employers who were paying earlier $15 or $16, now they're willing to pay up to $21. It's very challenging to find workers,” Hussain said.
Some Vaughan manufacturing businesses, Hussain added, are left hanging as some of the workers who used take buses from Mississauga and Brampton areas are now demanding more money, and are “preferring to stay local.”
“It's all across Canada or I would say all across North America, there's a huge shortage of labour because they prefer to find local work,” he added.
There are currently 293,000 jobs unfilled across the province.
Prioritizing family is key in understanding the job seekers’ mindset.
“I would say, especially people who are in the suburbs, so that would be Vaughan, Etobicoke, Mississauga, Ajax Newmarket, all of those areas, they're even less likely now to want to go back to an office,” said Gregory. “A lot of them had to leave their families to go all the way into the city for a job where they proved that they can do it on their own.”
But not everyone is feeling the trickle down effect.
George Villagomez's daughter is completing law school and is trying to find a part-time job in a Vaughan restaurant, but has had no luck.
“It’s hard to come by certain jobs,” he said. “On top of that, the jobs she got, some of them aren’t accommodating, because of COVID-19 — any slight sickness, some of them don’t take it seriously.”
Jordanna Bialo, a 37-year-old "professional office manager", isn’t faring well in the job market either.
When Bialo applied for the "perfect" job at a clinic in Thornhill, she found out more than 1,000 people had applied.
“I'm not even getting called back from recruiters,” the Richmond Hill resident said.
“I was willing to drive, get a car, take the bus, whatever, and they wouldn't even take my call — they wouldn't even look at me,” she lamented.
She also saw the ordeal her 65-year-old father from Thornhill went through — applying for 100 jobs — until he found an accounting/bookkeeper position.
"He would sit down and look for jobs every single day, as if he was working a full-time job looking for a job,” she said.
The labour shortage is alarming to the government.
“The employment shortage is not specific to any particular job; there is an acute labour shortage across the province,” Brian Shifman, president of Vaughan Chamber of Commerce said.
“The shortage is pushing the province and federal government to come up with solutions to the issue,” Shifman added, noting, legislation will be tabled in Queen's Park shortly to help immigrants get licensed to work in their professions.
While before COVID-19, skilled trades were in shortage, currently, the market is prioritizing both skilled trades and “jobs that emphasize digitization skill-sets,” added Shifman.
STORY BEHIND THE STORY: Reporter Dina Al-Shibeeb interviewed employment experts and job-seekers to get a gist of what's happening in the market from the job-seekers' perspective.
