Small businesses struggling to fill positions, as reflected by job numbers

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Help is needed in the works.

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Friday’s monthly snapshot showed an improvement in the employment outlook, but many small businesses say it’s still a big struggle to fill some positions.

“There are a lot of clients, but not a lot of stylists,” said Melissa Hellam, owner of Salon Goulart near Dundas and Ossington. “Everyone does their thing from home.”

Hellam and her sister typically accommodate up to eight hairdressers in their salon that they have had for 13 years.

Now they are stuck at four.

“I think what you could say is that the shortage of workers meant that many people did not have stylists.”

The Canadian Federation for Independent Business (CFIB) says the problem “was already brewing before COVID.”

Julie Kwiecinski from CFIB says that certain industries are experiencing hiring problems more than others.

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For example, he cites the shortage of skilled auto technicians and truck drivers; creating “more of an employee market.”

In their analysis of Friday’s employment figures, which show a steady drop in unemployment, economists have noted a shortage.

“In fact, with strong growth in other industries, it increasingly appears that there are not enough ‘unemployed’ workers left to fill positions in some of the worst-hit industries,” wrote Nathan Janzen, senior economist at RBC Economics.

“Labor markets have yet to fully recover from the shock of 2020, but they are getting closer, and reports of a labor shortage are not likely to dissipate anytime soon.”

Surprisingly, employment in food and lodging services declined for the second month in a row despite having a high number of vacancies. It appears that renewed restrictions in Alberta were partly responsible for the decline, ”wrote Sri Thanabalasingam, TD’s chief economist.

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The CFIB also said that its members revealed in a survey in February 2020 that they were already dealing with labor issues.

That situation is now more acute.

“Only two-thirds of the unemployed who returned to work within 12 months returned to the same industry as their last job,” Kwiecinski said.

What she calls “skill enhancement” – employees acquiring new skills – has drawn thousands of people out of areas like hospitality.

Some, permanently.

Combining that – he said – with the summer relaunch of the COVID restrictions “was the green light to reopen – creating a bottleneck. Thousands of companies were trying to hire the same workforce at the same time. “

That group, Hellam noted, is much smaller.

“It has been one person after another,” he said. “Every salon owner is looking for staff.”