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Hotel workers are still waiting for their economic recovery
While industry revenues have surpassed 2019 levels, these workers face problems ranging from heavier workloads, low wages and safety issues to a lack of job security. (Pexels Photo)
The economic effects of the COVID-19 pandemic might feel like a distant memory for many Canadians, but it is an ongoing struggle for some workers.
In particular, women hotel workers continue to face economic fallout, as documented by the Beyond Recovery project led by the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives, which revealed a paradox in the pandemic recovery in British Columbia’s hotel industry.
While industry revenues have surpassed 2019 levels, hotel workers are worse off. They face problems ranging from full-time jobs being turned into part-time ones, heavier workloads, low wages and safety issues to a lack of job security.
Federal and provincial governments have an obligation to protect workers. We propose four starting points: tie government subsidies to businesses to the rights of laid-off workers to be recalled to their former jobs; introduce regulations to encourage full-time, rather than on-call jobs; increase minimum wages and income-support programs; and toughen safety regulations.
A big player in the B.C. economy
The hotel industry is an important player in the B.C. economy. In 2019, room revenues alone generated $3.2 billion — one-third of all tourism revenue. In turn, tourism was a larger contributor to B.C.’s gross domestic product (GDP) than primary resource sectors such as mining, oil and gas extraction, agriculture and forestry.
Despite a drop at the height of the pandemic, room revenues hit their highest level for the past 10 years at $4.6 billion in 2023.
Employment in the accommodation and food services sector represents nearly seven per cent of total B.C. employment.
However, despite the success and significance of the sector, most hotel workers earn less than a living wage, which ranges across B.C. from $20.60 per hour to $26.51 per hour, according to Living Wage for Families in BC. Hotel workers’ median gross hourly wage was $18.50 in 2022, compared to $27 an hour across all industries in the province.
These workers are more likely to be women, immigrants, part-timers and older. Women workers are also worse off than their male colleagues. Their median gross hourly wage is $2.09 lower than men’s across the entire hotel industry, according to Statistics Canada.
COVID-19 made a bad situation worse
COVID-19 exacerbated the precarity of women workers in the hotel industry. At its height, public health measures such as travel restrictions and closures caused an immediate and drastic fall in the industry’s revenues.
Most workers were laid off. As health measures were progressively lifted, many workers were recalled. However, others were eventually terminated – even unionized workers who had recall rights that would have otherwise guaranteed their return to prior employment following layoffs.
Those who returned experienced an increase in already heavy workloads. Some faced safety risks such as the danger of COVID-19 infection as well as hostility from hotel guests because the workers were on the frontline of enforcing frequently changing public health measures in hotels with little support.
Already heavy workloads increased due to understaffing. For example, the workload of some room attendants – 70 per cent of whom are women – increased almost twofold due to a shift from cleaning the rooms daily to cleaning them only at the end of a guest’s stay, which usually meant the rooms were much dirtier.
Post-pandemic, hotel occupancy rates recovered but employment levels lagged. In 2022, industry revenues had rebounded but employment levels were 25 per cent below 2019 levels (see Figures 1 and 2).
While the hotel industry reports labour shortages, it is difficult to determine whether they are real or self-induced.
We spoke to women hotel workers who went on strike during the pandemic, protesting their termination and demanding their jobs back. We spoke to others whose jobs had essentially shifted from full-time to on-call, where they faced last-minute calls to work and requests for overtime.
Others were considering leaving the industry because of untenable workloads, unpredictable work schedules and fluctuating income. Because the workers are paid by the hour, their income varies weekly.
All the hotel workers with whom we spoke experienced moderate to severe economic hardship due to reduced incomes amid the rising cost of living, including increased food and housing insecurity.
Today, understaffing and dependency on overtime work threaten to become the norm as employers aim to make labour more flexible to reduce costs.
This not only has financial implications for hotel workers but also hurts their health and well-being. Heavy, increased workloads result in injuries. Room cleaners, whose work is physically demanding, report increased cases and intensity of back and other strains.
To meet their work targets, they often must work continuously without breaks or ergonomic help. Some cope by taking short-term disability leave but injuries recur when they return to work where the unsafe conditions have not changed.
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The intensity of unsafe workload is untenable for older workers. They are forced to choose between their health and financial well-being, especially because many had drawn from their retirement savings during pandemic layoffs.
Our research finds the hotel industry downloaded the risks of the pandemic onto workers and continues to benefit from cost-cutting strategies even as revenues peak. To many, COVID-19 recovery is equated with industry revenue recovery. However, a better benchmark is the recovery of workers who sustain the industry.
The federal and provincial governments distributed billions in pandemic wage subsidies, rent subsidies, low-interest loans and industry-targeted assistance to businesses. Between March 2020 and May 2021, B.C.’s accommodation and food services sector alone received more than $1.2 billion through the Canada emergency wage subsidy program. Yet, this was not conditional on a return to work for laid-off staff.
The provincial government did not intervene even after terminated hotel workers staged a hunger strike on the steps of the B.C. legislature in the summer of 2020.
Further, industry lobbying, citing labour shortages, led Ottawa to increase the proportion of workers who could be hired through the temporary foreign worker program in the accommodation and food services sector. This concession threatens to exacerbate the problems faced by industry workers.
Steps for protecting workers
Our governments have an obligation to protect workers. We propose four steps as a starting point.
- Proactively safeguard workers’ right to recall when layoffs occur during health or other emergencies. For example, tie employer wage subsidies to the retention of workers, with accountability and transparency provisions.
- Address income insecurity resulting from irregular and unpredictable work schedules. For example, introduce regulations that limit on-call scheduling and incentivize sustainable full-time employment.
- Increase minimum wages to living-wage levels. Enhance the Canada Pension Plan and the guaranteed income supplement (GIS) top-up for low-income seniors.
- Safeguard worker’s rights, health and well-being through proactive enforcement of work safety employment standards particularly for precariously employed workers including temporary foreign workers.
The full report can be found here: A paradox in the COVID-19 pandemic recovery.
This article first appeared on Policy Options and is republished here under a Creative Commons license.
