Providing promising practices to enhance the sustainability of Alberta’s food and beverage sector and improve the wellbeing of newcomers
High job turnover and vacancy rates have been an ongoing challenge for Canada’s accommodation and food services sector. This challenge has only intensified since the COVID-19 pandemic.
In Alberta’s food and beverage sector, the job vacancy rate climbed from 4.4% in 2020 to 11.9% by the beginning of 2022. The vacancy rate has remained higher than pre-pandemic levels. In late 2023, this sector had the highest job vacancy rate in the province at 8.3%.
Alberta’s food and beverage sector requires sustainable solutions to recruit and retain employees to lower the job vacancy rate.
One way Alberta’s food and beverage sector could reduce its job vacancy rate is by recruiting newcomer young adults. These young adults are 18 to 29 years old and arrived in Canada within the past five years. Many of them no longer attend school or participate in other employment training, and many are unemployed. In 2020, the unemployment rate of this group was 19.8%.
Solving two problems at once
With support from Alberta’s Ministry of Jobs, Economy, and Trade, we at PolicyWise for Children & Families aimed to understand the systemic labour issues within the food and beverage sector and how hiring newcomer young adults could resolve some of these challenges.
Our project team has begun a two-year investigation on how to create solutions that work for both the sector and newcomer young adults. We are using a collaborative approach by partnering with food and beverage sector employers, sector associations, newcomer young adults, and community support agencies.
The team is looking to:
- Provide a better understanding of the sector’s systemic labour issues and how the pandemic amplified them.
- Introduce newcomer-young-adult-oriented labour solutions to help stabilize the sector, while also creating meaningful employment opportunities for these young adults.
- Identify barriers and benefits perceived by employers and employees to attracting and retaining these young adults in this sector’s workforce.
Our team is working with our partners to co-develop strategies and best practices that:
- Promote resilient food and beverage businesses and workforces.
- Leverage available community supports.
- Build employer capacity to support newcomer young adults’ participation in the workforce.
Reducing employment barriers for newcomer young adults
As part of this work with the food and beverage sector, newcomer young adults, and community support agencies, our team recently released its first summary report: Supporting Newcomer Young Adult Employment in the Food and Beverage Sector.
This report identifies the barriers to employment for newcomer young adults in the food and beverage sector. It then provides five principles and actions newcomer young adults, food and beverage operators, and social and community support agencies can take to reduce these barriers.
To learn more about the policy and practice implications, visit the report’s dedicated resource page here.
Project Sponsors
This project and report were funded by the Government of Alberta’s Ministry of Jobs, Economy, and Trade.
The Government of Alberta is working in partnership with the Government of Canada to provide employment support programs and services.
