With the labor shortage, fast food chain operations have no other choice but to turn to immigrants for workers, believes the vice-president of public and government affairs of the Association Restauration Québec.
In 2023, 52,800 new permanent immigrants and 174,200 new non-permanent immigrants arrived in Quebec, according to recent data from the Institute of Statistics of Quebec.
This is a pool of workers, asylum seekers or international students, who come to relieve the fast food industry which is struggling to recruit employees, believes Martin Vézina.
“For us, it is essential, because there are no other workers available,” he explained in an interview with LCN on Thursday.
Generally considered a place of first employment, this field is finding it increasingly difficult to find workers since young people have more choices of industries in which to be hired. The sometimes evening and weekend schedules also play a role in the lack of manpower.
“We have no choice but to go to workers who are ready to work according to these schedules,” underlined Mr. Vézina.
In Quebec, more than 20,000 positions are vacant in the restaurant industry, a figure that rises to 78,000 across the country, according to Maximilien Roy, vice-president at Restaurants Canada.
Around 33% of workers in the sector come from cultural communities, he added.
“The use of temporary foreign workers is a last-ditch choice. For many farmers, it is not their first choice and it is not necessarily to maintain a certain “cheap labour”, it is to have hands,” he ruled.
