B. C. tourism industry hopes to recruit 101,000 workers by 2020
Fastest- growing sectors are recreation, entertainment and travel services
Evelyn Rodriguez chose to pursue a career as a pastry chef because she likes to make people happy. That the occupation is expected to be in hot demand in British Columbia over the next eight years is just icing on the cake for the Venezuelanborn baker.
“I am excited,” Rodriguez said of her future after plans were unveiled Monday to recruit and train an estimated 101,000 tourism professionals across the province by 2020.
According to the newly released Tourism Labour Market Strategy, coordinated by go2, B. C.’ s tourism and hospitality human resource association, nearly half ( 44,220) of the projected openings will be new jobs created by tourism growth. Another 57,000 positions will become vacant due to retirements.
Despite fluctuations in the number of visitors to the province in recent years, Arlene Keis, chief executive of go2, said B. C. tourism is expected to continue its longterm growth trend over the next few years.
“Currently we’re at about $ 13 billion in revenue per year, and our B. C. tourism strategy ... aims for the target to reach $ 18 billion by 2016, a growth rate of five- per- cent a year,” Keis said.
Roughly 43 per cent of the job openings are expected to be in food and beverage services, while the fastest- growing sectors for tourism growth are recreation and entertainment and travel services.
But Keis cautioned the industry will be under considerable stress to fill many of the new positions. The strategy projects the industry will be short by 14,000 people if new and innovative ways can’t be found to attract and retain the talent employers need.
Labour shortages related to tourism are already being felt in northern B. C. and in the Kootenay region where a strong mining sector and Alberta’s oilpatch are siphoning workers away from tourism.
The crunch is expected to intensify provincewide by 2016.
“The demand is huge, but the supply is not,” Keis said.
The B. C. tourism strategy identifies a number of ways that industry and the provincial government can align workforce, training and education strategies to ensure tourism businesses can find the skilled workers needed to keep their operations growing.
Some of the strategies include:
• Raising career awareness and recruitment campaigns in B. C. and abroad;
• Creating partnerships between summer and winter employers to explore exchange of seasonal or part- time workers;
• Tapping under- represented talent pools such as youth, first nations, new immigrants, older workers, and persons with disabilities; and
• Providing industry specific training programs in rural and remote areas.
Pat Bell, Ministry of Jobs, Tourism and Recreation, said the province is working with federal authorities in an effort to raise the number of foreign workers allowed into B. C. each year through the provincial nominee program from 3,500 to 5,000.
But the priority, Bell said, is to recruit among job- ready residents already in B. C., and to better attract those living elsewhere in Canada who are looking for either a job, or a reason to move West.
Tourism is one of the largest industries in the province, and the largest employer of youth — people between the ages of 15 and 24 years old. It’s made up of 18,000 mostly small to medium- sized businesses which directly employ over 127,000 British Columbians, according to information provided by go2.
This strategy was funded in part through the CanadaBritish Columbia Labour Market Development Agreement.
Download a copy of go2’ s Tourism Labour Market Strategy at www.go2hr.ca/strategy.