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As Canada’s restaurants and hotels begin to fully reopen after months of lockdown, they will almost surely struggle to find replacements for the workers who left the industry during COVID.
But they may have an advantage over their U.S. counterparts who have been struggling with labour shortages: a federal wage-subsidy program that kept many service workers connected to their employers.
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The sector accounts for 71 per cent of the 500,000 Canadian jobs that disappeared early in the pandemic and have yet to return. Now, as even the hardest-hit provinces make plans for phased reopenings beginning this month, they are confronting the fact that many of those workers have switched jobs or stopped working entirely, some executives in the hospitality and food-service industry say.
Even as Canadian businesses prepare to reopen gradually this summer after a year of intermittent lockdowns, banks are wary about the prospects of a fast uptick in credit growth as an economic recovery remains patchy and cautious commercial clients hold on to record amounts.
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