March 4, 2022 By Tom Nightingale Ontario’s mandatory proof-of-vaccination system was scrapped on March 1. Whatever one thinks of the mandates that had been in place for nearly six months, the fact is that this is another decision made by the government at relatively short notice for one of the most beleaguered industries impacted during the pandemic. “It took some ...Read more about this post
February 28, 2022 Ontario has announced “historic” new legislation that would see it become the first province to establish foundational employment standards for app-based gig workers, including extending to them the province’s general minimum wage of $15. The Working for Workers Act 2022 intends to boost protections for digital platform workers who offer rides or deliver food and other items ...Read more about this post
February 24, 2022 Amid the labour shortage that has plagued food production and processing, the governments of Canada and Ontario have announced they are investing up to $4 million to promote agri-food careers. A release says the investment will “help build a strong and competitive agri-food workforce that will ensure people can continue to access the safe and healthy ...Read more about this post
February 16, 2022 By Tom Nightingale The rollercoaster that Ontario restaurants have been on throughout the last two years makes Canada’s Wonderland look tame by comparison. Operators and staff have had to get used to drastic shifts to how they can operate, often at short notice, on numerous occasions throughout the pandemic. The latest of those came earlier this week ...Read more about this post
February 9, 2022 While the ongoing conversation around the restaurant staffing crisis has largely focused on kitchen staff and hourly front-of-house team members, it’s worth remembering that the challenges are also felt by restaurant management. As kitchen and dining room staff turnover increased dramatically throughout 2021, so did that of restaurant management positions. In both limited- and full-service restaurants, ...Read more about this post
February 7, 2022 The Canadian economy lost 200,000 jobs in January amid stricter public health rules put in place to slow the spread of the Omicron variant of COVID-19, according to Statistics Canada data. As the foodservice industry has come to expect over the last two years, it was hit hardest than most, The decrease marked the largest drop since January ...Read more about this post
February 1, 2022 Foodservice’s staffing issues are nothing new, but the circumstances of the last two years have seen it snowball into a full-blown labour shortage. In September 2021, the number of unfilled jobs in the sector in Canada grew to nearly 200,000 vacancies. Restaurants Canada’s Senior Economist Chris Elliott notes that the association realized that the labour shortage ...Read more about this post
January 24, 2022 By Megan Prevost Over the past two years, sustaining a profitable restaurant has proven difficult. Even some of the best, well-off local shops closed because of the changes in the restaurant industry. With coronavirus restrictions lifting and more people going out to eat, 2022 might be the perfect time for reopening your restaurant. Many business owners may ...Read more about this post
January 19, 2022 Canadian food industry associations are calling on the federal government to create an “emergency” temporary foreign workers program to address the chronic labour shortages still being seen in the sector. The Canadian Press reports that the group of 10 associations representing the food and beverage processing sector includes Food and Beverage Canada, the Canadian Poultry and Egg Processors ...Read more about this post
January 14, 2022 By Laurent May In the business and tech worlds, the word “disruption” gets tossed around a lot — usually with positive connotations, as when a new innovation changes an industry for the better. The world in general has seen major disruptions over the past couple of years, and not always the good kind. As has been ...Read more about this post
January 3, 2022 A common topic of discussion in the latter half of 2021 within the foodservice industry was the ongoing labour shortage. That has been well-documented, but what about those staff who have been clocking in to their restaurant shifts throughout the pandemic? COVID-19 hasn’t just caused the workforce to shrink and stretched restaurant operations in both ...Read more about this post
December 8, 2021 By David Hopkins Ontario’s minimum wage is going up again on January 1, 2022. And this time, unlike in the past, the minimum wage for servers will also rise significantly. It is set to increase almost 20 per cent, from $12.55 to $15 per hour. This comes at a time when most restaurants are trying to ...Read more about this post
December 3, 2021 As the hiring struggles continue in foodservice, operators are increasingly relying on teenagers to make up a significant proportion of their restaurant workforce. New data from Black Box Intelligence shows that teenagers aged 18 years or younger comprise a significantly larger section of the restaurant workforce than they did in 2019. In limited-service restaurants, teenagers made up 17 ...Read more about this post
December 3, 2021 RestoBiz spoke to four owners and operators about the continued effect of the pandemic on labour 21 months into the COVID-19 pandemic and foodservice operators are far from out of the woods. Whereas the first year of the pandemic was characterized by panic, shutdowns, layoffs, and other evolving measures, staffing challenges have been a major roadblock ...Read more about this post
November 26, 2021 Ontario’s restaurants and other foodservice, hospitality, and tourism businesses have been dealing with something of a labour crisis in recent months. That has been attributed to a variety of factors, including staff leaving the workforce for good due to the effects of COVID-19, a perceived lack of job security, government benefits offsetting the financial costs ...Read more about this post
