COVID job loss triples last recession
Employment in Waterloo Region hospitality sector halved since pandemic
WATERLOO REGION — The pandemic has exacted a crushing toll on employment, with Waterloo Region losing three times as many jobs last year as were lost in the last recession.
The job losses have affected some people and sectors much more severely than others, with women, youth, parttime workers and the food and hotel industry hardest hit, according to a new regional report that analyzes the job impact of the pandemic in 2020.
At its peak, an estimated 35,700 jobs were lost in the region in 2020. Over the whole year, new jobs were created, so that by year’s end the overall loss was 16,500 jobs. That compares to the 2009 recession, when 5,700 jobs disappeared.
The pandemic struck some industries far worse than others. Hardest hit of all was the hospitality industry: it ended the year with half as many jobs as it started with in 2020.
Amanda Weber, head chef at the Edelweiss Tavern, has been able to work through most of the pandemic, but said there have been times when she was the only kitchen staff.
Some staff were hired as little as two weeks ago, in anticipation of more business as the weather warms up, and they had to be let go when the province closed down dining in restaurants, she said.
She is working fewer hours and tries to balance hours among her staff to ensure people make a reasonable wage.
“Some of the servers I talk to tell me
they can barely afford their rent,” Weber said. “Everyone struggles, and you can tell. They seem more stressed out.”
The Edelweiss, a dining mainstay in south Kitchener, typically employs upwards of 80 people, but when restaurants closed altogether last spring, owner Lorne Miller and his son Jason were the only ones still working.
When patios reopened last summer, the restaurant employed about 45 people, but the latest stay-at-home order dropped staffing back down to about a dozen people on busier nights such as Fridays.
Laying off his employees, including some who have worked for him for decades, has been heartbreaking, Miller said.
“I was devastated,” he said. “But you have no choice. We kept as many people as we could.”
His business includes not only the large Edelweiss, which seats up to 750 people, but also catering, as well as small cafés at the regional airport, regional offices in Kitchener and Waterloo and at the Harper branch of the Waterloo public library.
Much of that business has dried up. Miller believes the experience last summer, when people flocked to patios, shows that business will return, though it might take a year or more.
Restaurants struggled with a series of lockdowns and restrictions that limit the numbers of people who can dine indoors, or even banned all dining other than takeout, as under the stay-at-home order now in place. In December the industry employed 52 per cent of its pre-COVID numbers, falling from 17,900 jobs in January to 9,300 in December.
The employment report, by researchers in Waterloo Region’s planning department is based on employment data for the Kitchener census metropolitan area, which includes all of Waterloo Region except for Wellesley Township. The report goes to regional councillors at a meeting Tuesday.
The report includes some signs of the region’s resilience: by the end of 2020, the workforce in the region was at 95 per cent of pre-COVID employment numbers.
But the intervening year was a difficult one. The region’s unemployment rate soared from 5.2 per cent to a high of 12.6 per cent in July and August. By the end of the year, the unemployment rate had improved to 8.4 per cent, better than the Ontario rate of 9.5 per cent.
The vast majority of all jobs lost — 83 per cent — were part-time.
Young people 24 and under suffered most, dropping from 60.3 per cent employed in 2019 to 49 per cent. Women suffered more job loss than men, with women’s employment down six per cent from 2019, compared to four per cent for men.
Most industries in the region lost jobs over the year. Other hard-hit industries include information, culture and recreation, which in December had employment levels 71 per cent of what it had before the pandemic; education jobs fell to 79 per cent of pre-pandemic levels.
But the report includes some signs of hope.
By year’s end half of the 14 industries had recovered to at least 95 per cent of their pre-COVID employment numbers.
The area’s diverse economy, with strong insurance and manufacturing, tech and other industries, help the region be more resilient, said Ryan Mounsey, Waterloo Region’s supervisor of economic development. “It has been a very difficult year, but what we’re seeing, versus other communities, is that we’re incrementally on the road to recovery.”
Jobs in some industries were up. Health care and social assistance jobs had employment levels 128 per cent of what they were pre-COVID; other government jobs were at 123 per cent of pre-pandemic levels; transportation and warehousing was at 122 per cent.
And the forecast is for sunnier times ahead. The Conference Board of Canada projects Waterloo Region will enjoy steady job growth in 2021, with unemployment dipping below six per cent by 2022.