My friend and I arrived at the hotel restaurant last Saturday morning at the same time as a large family did. The waitress – who was doubling as the hostess – asked how many in the family party. And one of the women in the group began counting out loud the people they expected to join the group for breakfast. First it was six, then eight, and finally a dozen people. I watched the waitress’s eyes roll. She wasn’t happy.
“I’d have thought the waitress would be delighted having to serve a large group,” I mentioned to my breakfast partner, and I added, “Bigger tip.” When the waitress came back to seat my friend and me in another booth, I mentioned that to her. “Doesn’t serving a bigger group make you happy?”
“Not when I’m the only one serving the entire restaurant,” she said. “They just can’t find people to fill service jobs.”
Our waitress had hit the nail on the head. When I did a little research over breakfast, I discovered that while the pandemic has receded for most of the world, a spinoff sickness has devastated the service world. The National Restaurant Association in the U.S. says that the restaurant industry in particular is still short a million workers; its service ranks are roughly down 6 per cent from pre-pandemic times.
That may not seem like much, but even that small a shortfall has left customers in the restaurant sector very dissatisfied – waiting longer to be seated, offered fewer options on menus, receiving less satisfying meal options, or facing earlier closing times.
I’ve noticed the same gaps in the airline sector. With a pent-up desire among North Americans to travel again and the airlines busy processing all those eager travellers, I’d have thought that service workers would be cheek-by-jowl in the airline industry. They’re not.
The passenger airline industry can’t find enough qualified pilots, ticket agents, flight attendants, baggage handlers or even air traffic controllers. The president of the Canadian Air Traffic Control Association told a parliamentary committee last month that the shortage of controllers has reached historic proportions.
“Short-staffing has meant that the system (is relying) on controller overtime to function,” Nick von Schoenberg told CTV in October. “This results in unacceptable demands on workers expected to work longer days.”
Coincidentally, on m my way to a flight through Pearson this past week, I happened to sit down on a shuttle bus across from a man and his family. They looked as if they were headed south to holiday. He said he was an air traffic controller.
“Shouldn’t you be up there in that tower at work?” I jested, pointing to the airport control tower. “It’s my first holiday in several years,” he said. “Staff is exhausted.”
Wherever one travels these days, one sees signs of the times: “Help wanted!” Not just in the hospitality and airlines businesses, but everywhere. Recently, on a drive between Winnipeg and Brandon, along the Trans-Canada Highway – one of the busiest trucking corridors in the country – I counted more than 50 semis with signs tacked on their trailers, “Now hiring.”
Further research told me that just about every trucking sub-industry desperately needs drivers: dry van drivers, flat-bed drivers, tanker drivers, refrigerated freight drivers and freight haulers. And on average truck drivers make nearly $25 an hour, which translates to about $80,000 per year.
That may appear to be a respectable wage, but when one weighs truckers’ costs – licences, highway tolls, vehicle maintenance and (with skyrocketing energy costs) diesel fuel – truck driving requires incredible skill, patience and deep pockets to make it pay.
I think it’s fair to say that the pandemic has taken away jobs the system cannot restore nearly as quickly. I think our focus at colleges and universities on streaming students to high-tech and marine archaeology, and not service jobs and the professional trades is also to blame.
Speaking of Winnipeg, the other night, after making several appearances in Manitoba, fellow historian David O’Keefe and I eventually made our way to Winnipeg airport for a flight back East. It happened to be the night of the CFL Western Final between the Blue Bombers and B.C. Lions.
We figured, once we’d made our way through airline processing, security checks and to the gate, that we’d settle into a bar for refreshment. At the very least, O’Keefe said, we could watch the game over a beer. Well, it appeared the dearth of service staff loomed once again. It wasn’t even 7 o’clock, and the only staff in the lounge was cleaning and closing up.
“Sorry,” the cleaning worker said, “the lounge just closed. No staff.”