32 BCBUSINESS DECEMBER/JANUARY 2017
I
t's late September, and
inside the lobby of the
Fairmont Waterfront
Hotel, a steady stream
of travellers are lin-
ing up at the check-in
desk; next door, the
hotel's
ARC restaurant
is buzzing with the chat-
ter of diners studying city
maps and servers calling out
orders to the kitchen. While
not as packed as in the sold-
out summer months, the
489-room hotel in downtown
Vancouver is struggling these
days to find workers to meet
the demand of its 200,000-
plus annual visitors. In a
typical example, openings
for in-room dining servers
and bussers that took two to
three weeks to fill just three
years ago now sit unfilled for
upward of four months.
A variety of factors are at
play, including changes in
2014 to the federal Tempo-
rary Foreign Workers pro-
gram, but Vancouver's high
cost of living has become a
top concern for hoteliers,
retailers and restaurateurs
across the region. "We've
seen a couple of people leave
because they're relocating to
places like the Island or the
Okanagan where they think
it's going to be less expensive
to live," says the Waterfront's
director of human resources,
Arlene Hall, who's been with
the Fairmont chain for 36
years. Hall says that many
job candidates that she inter-
views express resistance
to the regularly fluctuating
hours—an inevitable part of
hotel life. "We find some-
times people are looking to
juggle multiple jobs in order
to pay their bills."
The challenge of finding
stable hourly workers in the
Lower Mainland is echoed
by Cameron Laker,
CEO of
Burnaby staffing agency
Mindfield. Laker—whose cli-
ents range from Cobs Bread
to Mr. Lube—says the region's
cost of living touches all parts
of the service sector. "I can't
HELP WANTED
Arlene Hall, director
of human resources
at the Fairmont
Waterfront Hotel,
says some workers
juggle multiple jobs
to pay their bills
A Victim
of Its
Success
GLOBAL INTEREST IN VANCOUVER (DOWN NINE
PLACES ON THIS YEAR'S LIST) HAS MADE IT ONE
OF THE LEAST AFFORDABLE CITIES IN THE
WORLD–AND ONE OF THE HARDEST PLACES TO
ATTRACT AND RETAIN SERVICE WORKERS
b y J E N N Y P E N G
p h o t o g r a p h b y T A N Y A G O E H R I N G
B E S T
C I T I E S
F O R W O R K
I N B C
