HELP WANTED, BADLY
Owners on the Main are struggling mightily to find workers, with “we’re hiring” signs popping up all over. But some choose to look on the bright side: “Business is finally picking up on the street,” OH2 owner Corine Serruya says. Bill Brownstein has details.
The New Yorkers are perplexed. They ask if the signs they’ve been seeing on storefronts on the Main relate to a big sale. Not quite.
In fact, those “Nous Embauchons” signs they’ve been spotting translate as “We’re Hiring,” and they have become ubiquitous at boutiques, restaurants like A&W and Rôtisserie Coco Rico and specialty food shops along St-Laurent Blvd., underscoring current labour-shortage issues in Montreal and throughout Quebec.
The New Yorkers joke that, given the volatile political climate back home, they could consider applying for the jobs and moving here. But he’s a doctor and she’s a financial analyst, so they would be a tad overqualified to be shilling sausages at Charcuterie Hongroise, a mainstay on the Main for the last 65 years.
And that is precisely the problem, according to Charcuterie Hongroise owner Angelo Perusko, who has had his “Nous Embauchons” sign affixed to his window longer than he can recall. His need for staff is even more pressing now with summer allegedly on its way and with that, street fairs and festivals galore.
“People don’t want to do this kind of manual work any more,” Perusko says. “They want to find big jobs in fancy areas like computers or video games. They don’t even ask how much I will pay them. Even when I do hire, most of the workers don’t last long. Young people don’t want this kind of work. It’s hard, the hours are long, and it requires social skills. I can’t even get my son to put in a full week here. He says he’s not crazy like me. Even three days is too hard for him.
“In the old days, kids had to help their parents, but today it’s the complete opposite: Parents have to help their kids survive.”
So Perusko at 77 is pulling 70-hour weeks, seven days a week. “And I’ve never missed one day of work, either.”
He’s proud of his commitment, and accepts that this workload is the new reality for him and many others in the same situation.
Nor does Perusko feel that Coalition Avenir Québec government’s plans to curtail immigration here in the future or to scrap the immigration applications of nearly 18,000 candidates have any impact on his labour shortage.
“Fifty years ago, immigrant families came here and did this kind of work to get started in their new lives,” says Perusko, who was born in Italy but grew up in the former Yugoslavia before moving to Montreal in 1964. “I took the first job I could get when I got here. I had no choice. My feeling now is that immigrants come here looking for more. Many I’ve met take government training courses and get social assistance until they find what they’re looking for.”
Martin Nagy, 27, has been slicing meats and grilling sausages with Perusko for the last year. “I worked 140 hours here in a 10-day period recently. There aren’t many young people I know willing to do that,” says Nagy, who left his native Hungary 12 years ago.
Ildiko Csaki, 27, has been working just two weeks at the Charcuterie Hongroise counter and will likely stay the summer. But after graduating with a degree in business marketing, she’s looking for more. “This country is about immigrants,” says Csaki, who left Hungary 10 years ago. “But younger immigrants like me are better educated and dreaming much bigger today.”
Steve Da Silva, co-owner of the 60-year-old exotica food emporium La Vieille Europe on the Main, just pulled down the “Nous Embauchons” sign from his window.
“It wasn’t helping,” says Da Silva, whose family roots are Portuguese. “I think there is a shortage of manpower for most businesses in Montreal, possibly because there are too many businesses, especially in retail.
“I don’t think immigration is the issue. I think young people today want to do more technical-like jobs and are shying away from manual labour jobs. We’re looking for anybody willing to work and able to speak French, but we’ve been unable to fill the void.”
Across the boulevard at the funky Ophelie Hats boutique, owner/creative director Corine Serruya is more of a glass — or in her case, a chapeau — half-full person. In spite of the poster in her window seeking staff, she sees this labour shortage as something positive.
“This is a sign business is finally picking up on the street after tough times, when I didn’t take a salary for three years,” notes Serruya, who moved to Montreal from her native Paris 25 years ago. “It’s much better to be searching for employees than not. That means more customers are walking through our doors. We should be thankful. It’s all good. Really.” bbbrownstein@postmedia.com twitter.com/ billbrownstein