Vernon Businesses desperate for summer w

Workers wanted: Local businesses desperate for summer workers

May 7, 2019 | 7:31 PM

With temperatures rising, so too is the crunch for tourism-related businesses to get enough workers to get them through the summer.

Rob Wiehe is the General Manager of Denny’s and says that finding workers lately has become a challenge.

“Usually people are just showing up on our doorsteps and applying for jobs,” he says.

But that has changed.

He has held two job fairs recently trying to find employees to fill a variety of positions from dishwashers, servers, supervisors and line cooks.

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The company has also tried to lure in potential workers through radio, social media, and newspaper ads, a tactic Wiehe says is not often used by the company in the Okanagan.

A similar story

Across town, the challenge of finding employees in time for the summer season is a similar story.

Luis Garcia is the owner and operator of Los Huesos restaurant.

” It’s hard to get people to work,” says Garcia who adds that his restaurant is needing to fill all positions in time for the summer.

“I’ve been here in business for 11 years and people come and go and I guess the cost of living in the Okanagan is very quite high. Living here in the Okanagan it’s expensive so you have to make some decent income, ” He says.

He admits that he has had to shorten the hours of his restaurant because there is not enough staff to keep up with the demand.

” If we had enough people to work all day, breakfast , lunch, and dinner, we would be open 24/7″, he says.

As for possible solutions to the shortage, Garcia says he would like the government to allow more people to come to Canada to work in the hospitality industry on a temporary basis similar to the Seasonal Agricultural Worker program which provides a temporary VISA for workers for up to eight months.

“Alot of people from other countries want to come to work and they can’t because it is impossible, so I think it is a solution,” he said.