Some employers struggle to find young workers

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This article was published 19/06/2023 (812 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

For the past three years, hiring season at Tinkertown Amusements has been a roller-coaster.

“Before COVID, we used to get anywhere from 200-250 applications. These last three years, we were just getting maybe 50-60, just enough to make one shift,” owner Randy Saluk said of youth hiring attempts at his Winnipeg business.

Narratives around such seasonal employment are in conflict with current labour force statistics. As of May, Manitoba’s youth unemployment rate was 10.1 per cent, compared to an overall rate of 4.8 per cent.

Despite the fact one in 10 youth is currently unemployed, some seasonal employers say it’s been difficult to hire and retain young employees for the summer.

The demand at Youth Employment Services tells a different story. Employment counsellors are fully booked with appointments from job-seeking youth, executive director Erika Seidler said.

“On average, some of our employment facilitators are still meeting with 35, 36 people over a month’s span, so there’s still certainly a lot of interest, in at least the folks who are accessing our supports, to get out there and join the workforce,” Seidler said.

“They’re open to different sectors, they’re not being specific in where they’re wanting to work. They do want to work.”

According to last year’s statistics, it took YES clients, who are between the ages of 16 and 29, an average of 12 weeks to obtain employment.

As of this week, Saluk said, he’ll secure enough summer hires to open Tinkertown seven days a week in July and August. However, it wasn’t until after local TV news broadcast a story about the amusement park’s staffing troubles that his inbox began flooding with applications.

In the concession stands of Shaw Park, managing a team of youth workers is a balancing act for food and beverage manager Melissa Schlichting.

Happy workers mean happy Winnipeg Goldeyes fans, she said. But with more young employees asking for fewer hours and more flexibility, it’s become more challenging to satisfy everyone — particularly the management team.

“We’re the ones that are having to try to make the staff happy,” Schlichting said. “I don’t think that’s a bad thing, per se. Obviously, we want to make our staff happy, but it’s almost to the detriment of adding more stress and more work from our point of view.”

“I’m from a different generation, where we really valued and respected having a job. I feel like there are a lot more expectations from staff, and if we don’t cater to those expectations, then they’re just going to leave,”– Shaw Park food and beverage manager Melissa Schlichting

To keep up with increased demand in the concessions, the Goldeyes hired around 70 more people this baseball season than they did pre-pandemic.

Additionally, few employees want to work every game, Schlichting said.

“Before we could get away with having fewer staff because they wanted to work more shifts,” she said. “Now, staff are wanting to work every second or third game as opposed to every game, and so we’re having to then have those additional staff on hand.”

That is fairly consistent with the results of a September-October 2022 youth survey conducted by Leger Marketing. After a good salary, flexibility was rated the second-most important job quality for Millennial and Gen Z employees.

Thirty-three per cent of youth surveyed cited a lack of flexibility at work as a reason they’d like to quit their job.

“I’m from a different generation, where we really valued and respected having a job. I feel like there are a lot more expectations from staff, and if we don’t cater to those expectations, then they’re just going to leave,” Schlichting said.

Seidler believes there’s also a shift in what employers are seeking. She said there are fewer entry-level positions and an increased demand for more extensive work experience, making the competition high.

Jennifer Sarna, manager of recreation services, said the City of Winnipeg just closed its instructor swim guard vacancy after two years of staffing issues. To bolster recruitment for the specialized position, the city offered to train 60 guards in its 14-week program (normally $1,500 each) free of charge.

“(During the pandemic) people weren’t able to advance their training,” Sarna said. “We had to be creative in developing something that would fill the gap immediately.”

As disparities persist between what employers and job-seekers are reporting, it’s more complex than it appears on both fronts, Seidler said. “I think it’s kind of a bigger puzzle going on there, in terms of what employers might be experiencing versus what we’re seeing from our perspective.”

One piece of the puzzle might be the rising cost of living, which entry-level, minimum-wage jobs may not be keeping up with.

“Youth might be looking for more than that, because they’re aware of what their expenses are and that minimum wage is just not going to meet the rent, the food, the tuition, and all that kind of stuff,” Seidler said.

cierra.bettens@freepress.mb.ca