Canadian employers facing labor shortages are dealing with unvaccinated people

Ottawa — Canada’s tough labor market has forced many companies to provide regular COVID-19 testing for vaccine obligations, while others have overturned previously announced vaccination requirements. ..

Canada’s Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s government has adopted one of the world’s toughest vaccination policies for civil servants, putting more than 1,000 workers on unpaid leave and putting thousands more at risk. I am.

Airlines, police, boards of education, and even the Big Five Bank of Canada have promised strict compulsory vaccine policies. However, follow-through has proven to be less simple, especially as employers are working on staff shortages and workers are demanding exemptions.

Jobs in Canada have doubled so far this year, official data show. Mandatory vaccines can make it difficult to perform these tasks and put upward pressure on wages. It can foster inflation and has already been moving at nearly 20 years.

“It’s already difficult to find staff, not to mention imposing vaccination obligations. Dan Kelly, CEO of the Canadian Independent Business Federation, has a potential additional 20 percent of potential workers. He said it would reduce it.

At Luda Foods, a Montreal-based soup and sauce maker, President Robert Iser said he has 14 job openings, no vaccination obligations, and no plans to limit new hires to vaccinated people. ..

“I don’t want to reduce the already fairly low (labor) pool,” Iser said. “We need to attract people to meet demand, otherwise our competitors will.”

Data released on Friday supported Canada’s tough labor market with the addition of a large number of 153,700 jobs in November. It also showed that the mismatch between available workers and unsatisfied work is widening. And job listings are well above pre-pandemic levels.

Walk back

Quebec last month stepped back vaccination requirements for health care workers, saying they couldn’t afford to lose thousands of unvaccinated staff. Ontario, also aiming for a mission, said it wouldn’t go any further.

Both the Toronto-Dominion Bank and the Bank of Montreal have relaxed their vaccination policies, allowing regular inspections of workers past the October 31 vaccination deadline.

In Canada, 86% of adults are fully vaccinated, but less than 80% between the ages of 18 and 40. At least 15 new Omicron variants in Canada were reported last week.

John Capelli, vice president of onsite managed services in Canada at global recruitment firm Adecco, said half of its clients require vaccination and the other half allow routine unvaccinated testing.

But he said, despite the fact that Omicron variants are tackling the toughest employment market they’ve seen in their 25-year career, more workplaces will be encouraged to tighten vaccination. I’m looking forward to it.

“We are now starting to see cases of the first workplace (COVID-19) in five months,” he said.

Indeed, the number of Canadian job listings on search websites that mention vaccine requirements has quadrupled since August.

In the hit manufacturing industry, 77% of companies say that attracting and retaining workers is of paramount concern, and vaccines are rarely mandated.

Dennis Derby, CEO of Canadian manufacturers and exporters, said most of Canada’s factories operate safely throughout the pandemic. CME encourages vaccination, but “if someone doesn’t want to be vaccinated, some companies are still using rapid testing,” he added.

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