Tourism employment in Canada is growing, though Tourism HR Canada warns that the positive figures are deceptive, reflecting the overall decline in the sector’s labour market during the pandemic. Moreover, the gains still do not meet industry demand.

THRC reports that overall tourism employment grew 5.9% in May and the unemployment rate significantly improved in all sectors when compared to 2019, 2020 and 2021; however, the data, it notes, is artificially inflated by the decline in the overall size of the labour market from previous years.

Compared to April, the size of the labour market grew by 4.6% or 88,400 workers, however two sectors – transportation and travel services – saw a decreased labour force of 1.6% (5,600 workers) and 1.4% (500 workers) respectively, and overall, the tourism labour force remains 203,000 workers (-9.2%, 1.9 million) below the level it had in May 2019 (2.21 million).

“This points to a labour shortage in the industry at a time when many of its sectors are gearing up for peak economic season (and) as the industry looks towards recovery in the coming months, the size of the labour force continues to be much small than the demand from employers,” says the report.

Still, numbers are improving. In May, the unemployment rate in the tourism sector was 3.9%, which is two percentage points better than 2021.