No day at the beach: Ontario tourist town hard hit by labour shortages

A seasonal restaurant on the beach in Port Stanley, Ont., is encouraging seniors or retired people to apply as a way of addressing the labour shortage.

A popular beach destination in southwestern Ontario is far from immune to Canada’s labour shortage, but one restaurant is taking a unique approach to try to fill positions.

GT’s On The Beach in Port Stanley, Ont. — about a 40-minute drive south of London — recently posted online that it is looking to hire mature or retired candidates for cleaning and setup.

Andy Gates, who owns GT’s with his wife Carol, told Global News that traditional hiring methods simply weren’t working. He said the business, which runs seasonally from the start of May to late September, begins its hiring process in January and has struggled to fill the cleaning position.

“We thought outside the box and thought, OK, ‘Who can we target who this might be of interest to?’” he explained.

“Instead of looking for somebody full-time, could I get three or four mature people who are looking to find something to do, make a little extra money?”

Jean Vedova, owner of the Kettle Creek Inn, could empathize with the struggle to fill positions. She told Global News she’s ecstatic to reopen the kitchen for May 24 with new chef Nikola Gucanni and sous-chef Sarah Martins, but last year was a different story.

“For the last couple of years, it’s been very difficult to find enough good staff, particularly for the kitchen. That’s a thankless place in order to be able to work,” she explained.

“We were noted for our incredible dining and that’s why last July, when things came crashing down, we really had to just close the kitchen totally because to try to fill that gap was going to be impossible. If it was possibly filled, the worry was that we would not be able to deliver the same product and there would be nothing worse than getting a bad reputation.”