Four years after the start of the pandemic, the hospitality sector is still ailing in some ways. Just take a look at jobs.
Employment in the accommodation and food services industry is down nearly 10 per cent from February, 2020, according to Statistics Canada’s Labour Force Survey. That means roughly 120,000 fewer people are working in this area. The rest of the labour market is up 7.2 per cent.
The numbers aren’t quite as bad in Statscan’s payroll survey, which shows hospitality jobs are down 2.9 per cent.
What explains the discrepancy? It’s possible the Labour Force Survey numbers are weaker because Statscan is struggling to reach a surge of temporary residents, who often work in hospitality. The payroll survey, in contrast, is based in part on tax data from the Canada Revenue Agency.
Regardless, the employment situation isn’t back to normal. Restaurants and hotels were among those businesses most affected by COVID-19 and frequently shifting public-health restrictions. Many of their workers simply moved on to other fields.
In other respects, the industry is on better footing. The number of active businesses in accommodation and food services is effectively the same as four years ago, according to Statscan estimates. Restaurants and bars are generating about $8-billion in monthly sales, up from roughly $6.5-billion in early 2020, although those figures aren’t adjusted for inflation.
As of January, there were nearly 80,000 job vacancies in hospitality, about the same as four years earlier. It’s not as if there are an unusually high number of jobs to fill. In fact, vacancies have tumbled by 34 per cent over the past year, even as total payroll employment at restaurants and hotels has barely changed.
Taken together, it seems that hospitality businesses are simply making do with fewer employees.
Decoder is a weekly feature that unpacks an important economic chart.
Matt Lundy