After two years of on-and-off lockdowns, Rachel Reinders felt a renewed sense of hope last month as pandemic restrictions eased and spring dawned on the cusp of a new patio season.
But Reinders, who heads administration at the Lieutenant鈥檚 Pump pub in Ottawa, had to scale back operations yet again, shutting down its lunchtime kitchen for a week in March because four cooks were on sick leave simultaneously.
鈥淲e鈥檙e not fully staffed in the kitchen as it is, so we couldn鈥檛 even really lose one. And we lost four,鈥� she said. 鈥淭hose who were left behind worked double-time to pick up the slack.鈥�
Businesses across Canada are struggling to cope with an apparent sixth wave of COVID-19, as staffing shortages hamper sectors from health care to hospitality and manufacturing鈥� though the interruption remains more manageable than last winter鈥檚 Omicron variant surge.
Dr. Kevin Smith, chief executive at the University Health Network in Toronto, said Wednesday that case numbers at its hospitals have shot up in the past few days, 鈥渟o much so that staffing is challenging once again.鈥�
In Montreal, parka maker Quartz Co. saw about 10 of its roughly 100 employees stay home with COVID-19 symptoms recently, though co-founder Fran莽ois-Xavier Robert says the absences were shorter than in January.
鈥淚t鈥檚 just as many as we had in December,鈥� when the company shut down its flagship store in Montreal and a pair of pop-up storefronts there and in Toronto. 鈥淧retty much everyone that didn鈥檛 have it over the winter had it in the last two weeks.
鈥淣obody got really sick. People were stopping for one or two days and then back to working,鈥� Robert added. 鈥淭his time it鈥檚 more easygoing.鈥�
Nonetheless, retailers, gyms and event spaces are taking yet another hit as workers fall ill or steer clear of those sectors altogether, fearing further lockdowns, said Ryan Mallough, a senior director with the Canadian Federation of Independent Business.
鈥淭he impact is being felt across the board, in terms of absences,鈥� he said. 鈥淪ome of that nervousness is starting to creep back into the mindset a little bit.鈥�
Several Canadian provinces are bolstering their defences against the virus amid signs of a sixth wave. Quebec and Prince Edward Island extended their provincial mask mandates until later this month and Ontario, Quebec and British Columbia plan to expand access to fourth doses of the vaccine.
The food supply chain continues to feel pandemic pinch.
Before the onset of COVID-19, processing plants contended with a 10 per cent labour shortage as the workforce aged. After peaking at 30 per cent during the Omicron surge, the shortage remains at 25 per cent, according to Food and Beverage Canada.
鈥淲orkforce issues in primary agriculture and food manufacturing are critical and need to be addressed urgently,鈥� Jennifer Wright, acting executive director of the Canadian Agricultural Human Resource Council, said in a release Friday.
On Monday the federal government eased rules on temporary foreign workers in some areas of the economy desperately in need of employees, allowing employers in those industries to hire up to 30 per cent of their workforce through the program.
But Ottawa has failed to address a growing backlog for incoming workers, said Stewart Skinner, a pork farmer near Listowel, Ont. Processing times at the Immigration Department have increased from between three and four months to more than a year, he said.
鈥淚t has not been a lot of fun and the frustration is more intense because it is not due to lack of demand for our product. It is supply chain disruption that is solely because we don鈥檛 have enough labour to process the pork鈥� 鈥� a problem exacerbated by the sixth wave 鈥� Skinner said in an email.
However, labour snags for many retailers have largely stabilized.
鈥淚 don鈥檛 think they鈥檙e experiencing as significant a disruption as they were in January. The peak seems to have been then,鈥� said Retail Council of Canada spokesperson Michelle Wasylyshen.
Meanwhile some offices are moving ahead as planned with back-to-work policies, though these often involve hybrid arrangements, as at Desjardins Group. Infections among its 54,000 employees are on the rise, but not to the point of hurting its services, said spokesman Jean Beno卯t Turcotti.
National Bank also aims to ramp up to 50 per cent capacity from mostly remote work for its 21,000 employees at the moment. It will move beyond that threshold, but only 鈥渇ollowing the momentum and the impact of this sixth wave,鈥� said spokesman Jean-Francois Cadieux.
鈥� Christopher Reynolds, The Canadian Press
