BCBUSINESS.CA DECEMBER/JANUARY 2017 BCBUSINESS 33
think of a restaurateur either
in the quick-service restau-
rants like Tim Hortons or
casual fine dining ones like
Cactus Club and Moxie's who
isn't struggling to find really
sol id, bac k- of-t he -hou se
staff," says Laker. "Who can
live in downtown right now
making $12 an hour? You can't
afford it. It's putting pressure
on hiring from outside your
core region because there's
huge risk in turnover because
that employee doesn't want
to travel for 45 minutes to
work."
Typical of the challenge
that Laker identifies is Michael
Lylyk—a 32-year-old working
part-time for $10.85 an hour
at the Gap on Robson Street.
Lylyk's on-call shift starts
at 5 a.m., but because of his
transit-unfriendly neighbour-
hood of North Burnaby, he
has to leave home by 2:30
a.m. to catch a bus in time
for work. "I could cab it, but
that costs money that I don't
have. So the cheapest thing
for me is to do is to sacrifice
sleep," says the Vancouver
Film School graduate, who
currently unboxes clothes for
the Gap but one day hopes to
work full-time in television or
radio broadcasting.
For Claudia Hernandez,
a room attendant at the
Burrard Hotel across from St.
Paul's Hospital, the sacrifice is
even greater. Hernandez is a
40-year-old single mother of
three living in one of the city's
subsidized housing units near
Marine Drive and Boundary
Road. For Hernandez, access
to transit isn't the issue; it's
having anything left in the
bank after payday to keep her
family out of poverty. "By the
time my new cheque comes,
I'm already broke."
■
The challenge of finding stable hourly workers
in the Lower Mainland is echoed by Cameron
Laker,
CEO of Burnaby staffing agency Mindfield.
Laker–whose clients range from Cobs Bread to
Mr. Lube–says the region's cost of living touches
all parts of the service sector
