Automotive shop owner Bernie Pawlik has spent more time under the hoods of customers’ cars than he expected this summer, which he doesn’t mind, except it isn’t helping him run his business.
“Normally I’d be in my office, but because I’m short a mechanic, I’m in the shop working,” said Pawlik. “It’s kind of like you’ve got to decide where the most important place to spend time is.”
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Normally, Pawlik would have three technicians in Pawlik Automotive’s five-bay shop on Southwest Marine Drive in Vancouver, but replacing one of them has required a lot of patience and a wider net than he might have used in the past.
“It’s horrible,” Pawlik said of recruiting. It was “bad pre-pandemic. There’s been a shortage of mechanics, or automotive technicians as we call them, for a long time.”
Conditions now, however, are worse, which have had Pawlik turning to recruiting agencies and ad services, such as indeed.com that have circulated his advertising as far as nearby U.S. states, when he usually prefers to keep his hiring close to home.
No rest to restaurant hiring
It was a feat for the Vancouver restaurant Tap and Barrel to hire 300 new employees for the newly renovated and revamped Bridges on Granville Island, but its managers haven’t been able to take a break from recruiting.
“The crazy part is, even with how many people they’ve hired, we’re still hiring there, and it still can be challenging,” said company president Jason Forbes. “More and more through COVID, and especially now, we’re finding that it’s just ongoing (and) there’s a bit more turnover.
And staffing remains leaner than the company would like at its five other Vancouver locations, including Tap and Barrels at Olympic Village, Convention Centre, and the Shipyards district in North Vancouver. Not so much that they have had to close on certain days, but enough to prevent them from opening all tables at given times.
“The kitchen is probably the most challenging, and that really speaks to losing some of the veterans out of the industry,” Forbes said.
depenner@postmedia.com
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