Help wanted: Maritime business owners look to fill job vacancies

From daycares to restaurants, Maritime businesses are shorthanded and job listings are long.

“In the child-care sector there are many, many, many jobs advertised and responses and applications are very low,” says Bonnie Minard, the executive director of Portland Daycare Centre.

“It means sometimes centres can’t run at capacity. It means sometimes families can’t access child care.”

Brendon Bernard, senior economist with Indeed.com, says job postings in Atlantic Canada and across the country are well above pre-pandemic rates.

“We can look in the service sector, whether it’s retail or food services, we can look in professional services, whether it’s tech or other professional type job,” says Bernard.

Katia and Paul Diab are the owners of Summit Café, a restaurant along the Halifax waterfront. As tourists cruise into Halifax and patios pop up, they say they want to build a beer garden - they have space, but not the eight or nine servers they’d need.

“Cannot find anybody,” said Katia Diab.

“The only thing we need is the staff and that’s all that’s holding us,” said Paul Diab.

The Diab’s problem is an industry-wide problem in Nova Scotia. As job-seekers arrive from Ukraine, the restaurant industry sees opportunity.

“English will be an issue for service but it won’t necessarily be an issue on the kitchen-side. That can usually get worked out with photographs, drawings,” Stewart said.

Ray Keenan, owner of Rollo Bay Holdings Ltd, which grows, packages and markets potatoes also hopes to hire Ukrainians.

“Ukraine is the breadbasket of Europe and so it has a huge agricultural component to it,” Keenan said.