Jobs unfilled as frustrated employers blame COVID payouts

OTTAWA — Small-business owners say they cannot find enough workers willing to give up federal pandemic payments and take jobs, so they’re paring back reopening plans, potentially hampering the economic recovery.

Industry groups and business owners have warned for months that the Trudeau government’s Canada Recovery Benefit (CRB) program in particular has hampered efforts to bring back workers, incentivizing some to decline work opportunities in favour of staying at home for reduced pay.

The CRB has been paying out $500 per week to unemployed workers. Ottawa is planning to reduce that to $300 per week in July.

“The government is empowering people to stay home and still get paid,” said Angelo Santorelli, president of Schomberg, Ont.-based Trisan Construction.

Trisan employs around 180 people and pays its operators anywhere between $22 and $28 per hour, Santorelli said. But he has seen workers across that pay range decline work in order to continue receiving federal benefits.

“It’s not as if we’re paying them minimum wage,” he said.

He said he is worried about a longer-term “cultural shift” that persists well after the pandemic is over, in which workers seek out government supports over employment prospects.

Santorelli, who also heads the local chapter of the Chamber of Commerce, has heard similar complaints about workers declining jobs to collect benefits from numerous other firms, including one nearby company that remains short-staffed by 15 people. Business lobby groups have reported similar anecdotes.

“I think they (the federal government) have been a little bit overly generous,” said Phil Weaver, founder of Oakview Management, a holding company that owns 53 barbershops and beauty salons in the Ottawa region. Weaver said his employee count has fallen from 280 staff before the pandemic to around 230 as he struggles to bring on new workers.

Statistics Canada estimates there were 632,700 vacant jobs nationally in March, the latest month for which data are available, approximately 100 basis points higher than levels prior to the pandemic. The hospitality sector recorded the highest vacancy rate, with 7.4 per cent of jobs unfilled; for the construction sector, vacancy was at 5.8 per cent.

Last week, Statcan reported that Canada’s unemployment rate for May had risen slightly, to 8.2 per cent from 8.1 per cent in April.

Weak recent U.S. jobs data have been blamed by employers and business groups on overly generous government benefits. The U.S. Chamber of Commerce has called on the federal government to pull back benefits to unemployed workers of US$300 per week that it says are hampering the post-pandemic recovery.