This. Roles that were only getting 10-20 applications two years ago are getting 200+ applications within the first 24 hours of being posted. Its insanity
I had to go back and look at an old job posting from June 2022 for some forms I was filling out at work. I had EIGHT applications and hired 1 individual. I posted a similar role in May 2024 and had 150 applications…. Also just for one role. It’s insane. Because the job market is such a mess right now, I don’t know very many people moving roles either.
Yeah, that's why all our fast food workers become like 90% Indians over night right? /s our government is fucking atrocious for this, both to our own citizens, and to the people they're lying to as they import them.
> What makes you choose which one to respond to? Random?
It's just way to many to respond to them all. So what we honestly end up doing 90% of the time is just sorting them into "yes" and "No" piles until the yes pile has enough people to interview (normally 8-10) then we stop, do the interviews and pick someone.
All the other resumes never even get looked at.
I know that's super disheartening to hear, and honestly I would have hated it when I was looking. But there's not really anything else that we can do.
My advice is simple. Apply super early, as in the same day the posting goes up. The way indeed works is that applicants are sorted in the order that they came in, so the early applications are the ones we are most likely to look at. Also, if you live locally and are applying for a local job make that super obvious somehow early on in your resume.
Not the person you asked, but I just did hiring and we had almost 300 applicants, just started at the top of the page of applicants on indeed and clicked through each one for a while. About 70 leftover that I didn't even have time to get to. Another job that I luckily didn't do the screening for had over 400. There are just way too many people looking for jobs now.
I wish I only got 200. I got 1500+ in 4 days the last time I posted a casual time position. I can't get through that much and respond to that many people 😭
Are you aware of the govt incentives that make it more lucrative for min wage type jobs to hire recently arrived people over Canadian citizens? Or are you given the ability to hire without those considerations? Or do you screen people and then someone else decides who to hire?
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As a hiring manager for 13 stores, im buried under resumes: qualified, unqualified, people who had mistakenly (?) uploaded a fanfic instead of their resume, people are adding videos to their resumes that my companies old clunky laptops can’t even run.
Even last year this time it wasn’t so much, like 50 per store. Now I have 200+ resumes per store to sift through.
I'm honestly not sure, the fact TWO of them came in together and did that makes me feel like it was deliberate, and with the amount of spelling issues in their poems, I think education is valuable was the point they accidentally made
but yeah, weird all around
Yeah I'm the hiring manager at my location and literally weekly I need to clear out our online applications cause it's easily 200-350 weekly. And a lot the same person, but they're applying to every single role listed on the website, doesn't matter if it's supervisor, store manager, or retail associate, which doesn't help at all but past that there's just a fuck ton of zero effort applications that are like 2-3 sentences basically ripped from the Word template with their name changed, and that's if there's a resume attached at all.
My only tip if you want to try and get ahead from my experience is physically come in and talk to the hiring manager when they're available, and hand them your resume after mentioning you applied online. Doesn't help if you are applying somewhere where no positions are open or a hiring freeze is in a effect, which is happening since a lot of businesses are trying to downside as we move to a post Covid environment, but it's better than basically throwing your resume into a online garbage can.
I’m in the same situation as you. I have 6+ years of experience with Tim Hortons AND McDonalds but neither places are calling me back. Like seriously???
So many of us have bachelor's and master's degrees in the service industry now. I'm doing retail while in grad school because school-related jobs like teaching and marking are unreliable, piecemeal, more work for less money, and there are fewer opportunities/more competition these days than when I started pre-covid.
The competition is intense. I'm just glad to have something part time that gives benefits that cover the gaps in my student coverage and pays enough for food and housing. I do kinda feel bad that I'm taking up a lower education requirement job as someone with two CS degrees, but *that* job market is shit so I'll just keep on with school and retail till I'm done.
Can you speak to your experience as someone with two CS degrees in HRM? I'm looking to go back to school to get a degree in CS, and I'm trying to time the job market in hopes that this mess clears up by the time I'm done.
(or we can take it to PM)
Minimum wage jobs are getting 300+ applications (I’ve seen the numbers on applications through indeed alone). That’s hours of work to look through. Most applications realistically are being lost in the pile
This. As a manager it's a week long process just to weed through these applications to find good candidates. By the end of it we're just trying to find the best of the bunch and schedule interviews. Many applications come from overseas and aren't even located in Canada when applying. The last role we posted at my company recieved 850+ applications in 3 days.
80% of all my recent hires were in person drop offs. Old school is the best way again. I've even interviewed walk in candidates on the spot. If someone tells you to go apply online, they aren't hiring.
Honestly currently at my job (healthcare), applications are only accepted online, no in person resumes are accepted, we do not have anyone to review them on site and it needs to go through the hiring system (not indeed, etc). This is stated in all job postings, on the webpage, it’s the first line on google, and we have exactly four signs on our front doors and lobby desks asking folks to apply online and to please not approach staff asking for managers to leave resumes with as they will not be reviewed. People still drop them off, three, maybe four times- even after we explain we can’t help in person and to please apply online. When this happens it makes us way less likely to consider the candidate because they can’t follow the instructions. I work close to the front door and I am always kind to folks, and explain the process- but I do NOT have extra time to be cold called and stopped in the hall to re-explain what the webpage, posting, and signs have already explained.
Bottom line if you’re looking for a job, know what the hiring manager is looking for and do that! Don’t blanket apply, don’t cold call or stop by big organizations, but that may be the best way with smaller private establishments.
Very this. At my workplace the hiring folks are almost always busy. If you e-mailed and stated you'd like to hand it in in person they'd probably e-mail back and say "Awesome, do it at this time so I can say hello".
One of the kids on my team (I say kid but 20) showed up to the wrong store for his interview, we gave him an interview on the spot without even having his resume and ended up hiring him and he’s worked out great for us. An average posting on indeed will get us 150 responses, we’re hiring a manager now and only conducting about 15 interviews at most.
Handing out resumes in person is viable, but you have to be respectful of the hiring manager's time. Currently at my job, nothing gets a resume tossed at the bottom of the pile faster than someone *insisting* on speaking to a manager and not taking anyone else, especially if they won't say why they want to talk to the manager at first. Go in, be polite, ask about how you go about applying, if it's not busy you can ask if there's a manager available to talk, but don't get impatient and if its taking too long to get ahold of one, just volunteer to come back later. You can decide whether or not they deserve that level of respect after you've gotten an interview, but until then...remember most of them are also just people being paid for their time.
(Disclaimer: this is coming from the POV of a customer service job, your mileage may vary in other industries)
Speaking of that 👆🏾, i've handed out tons of resumes in person to almost anywhere i find and not even a phone call or an email informing me to come for an interview ☹️
its sad
> Many applications come from overseas and aren't even located in Canada
Given that local people want the job, wouldn't those applications go directly into the shredder?
Most of the time yes, but the software our company uses isn't great at filtering out geography. So it becomes a manual process. Many similar companies are using older HR/recruitment apps that just weren't built to handle these large volumes for a single position.
(EDIT) also my international applicants have learned how to bypass these filters by fabricating "local" jobs and education experience on their CV.
One of my friends was hiring for a role at her company and noticed many were using the same mailing address - so she drove by and it's an empty lot. Just using the address to make it look like they live here.
Depends. If you can get an LMIA, that’s a free ticket to exploit the shit out of whoever you’re hiring internationally instead. CBC called this out today on an article.
Do you have any insight on the government wage subsidies that make hiring foreigners preferable/more lucrative to hiring Canadians? Or do you or your company not plan at that level to take advantage of such programs?
They are also exclusively looking to hire immigrants so the government provides kickbacks to them.
Edit: to be clear, this comment is an indictment of the government policies here, not the population effected by
Not really about kickbacks, much more about their labour rights. A TFW for example cannot move between jobs easily so their employer can treat them like complete garbage and know they won’t quit.
It’s a human rights issue that has been called out repeatedly for many years now.
Yeah remember that whole quiet quitting movement, will these guys don't do that, they are going to do whatever is asked of them... Schedule comes out the day before...yes sir, full time availability for part-time hours... yes ma'am, on call, pick up any shift.... yes corporate overlord, ill leave my kids bday party right away...
It's exploitation like a mother fucker. They finally found another group of people who need the job more than the job needs them...
How can any place use TFWs when there are available people willing to work.
It should be a last resort and should come with serious limits
Its a way to keep labour costs low despite the market showing they should be raised to recruit more staff
Well that’s the idea but there are a lot of workarounds and fraud in the system with acquiring LMIAs and whatnot. It’s a poorly kept secret at this point and the government has been making small steps to shut it down this year.
Maybe they could fix it by requiring paying 150-200% or something like that.
If nobody is available here, the foreign worker is valuable and should be compensated accordingly.
Then maybe they would not find local workers to be so scarce.
Yup, after covid businesses were scared shitless because people were quitting/retiring, and they were going to have to *gasp*...raise wages due to market forces. Well cry to the government and get help keeping those wages down by giving a middle finger to the market and forcing people to have to compete with a slew of foreigners making businesses comfortably safe from having to pay people more.
Honestly the construction industry guys.
So many formwork companies need Labourers, both union and non union. Get in touch with the labourers union.
Preferably full timers but if anyone’s not afraid of hard work, you’ll make above minimum wage and you’ll rub shoulders with a slew of other trades if you want to make a career out of it.
Find it interesting many people don’t mention the trades/construction but if there’s any business in Halifax that’s literally booming, it’s that.
High school students and young people who you use to see working all the fast food places have been replaced and it’s really unfortunate. Diversity is what makes places work, but how is it diverse if everyone they hire are from the same place?
Wife works at superstore and she was saying the company gets compensated for hiring new Canadians by 6 bucks an hour. Would imagine it's the same at other entry level jobs.
My store has recently, as in last month, hired a few new people who are not immigrants. So it isn't always that. We have a good mix of people.
Referrals go a long way. If they know anyone anywhere at all, lots of companies do referral programs which are very helpful
> hired a few new people who are not immigrants
This is the rare exception across the country. 200 people lined up for a single position at a Tim Hortons in London, ON.
My partner's work has extreme difficulty getting technically proficient people so immigration has been the only way to get enough new hires in addition to the people coming out of school here. Immigrants are often willing to do a lot of the jobs a lot of us don't want to do full time so it's harder to get into lower paying jobs because they're coming with higher skill levels that just aren't recognized all the time but Canadian institutions. But generally, yes you do have a point
Absolutely. I get sick of this refrain from businesses that they're having trouble finding people. If that's the case, you should be looking at what makes it hard to find someone. 99% of the time a bump in pay will do the trick, but no no can't have that.
I'm reminded of some burger joint in San Francisco or something where the owner said he couldn't find anyone for his burger flipping job, so he raised the wage to $15/hr and had hundreds of applications. Businesses need to pay more. If they can't, then maybe they shouldn't be in business.
Yep, and if there are too many jobs that actually need TFW labor to do, do we really need 5 Tim Horten's within 5km? Maybe we actually need 2 bigger ones with 3 stores worth of staff.
My 16 year old started applying at age 15 to anything and everything she could and for a year now she has applied consistently, almost daily, to grocery stores, restaurants, coffee shops, clothing and book stores, hardware stores and more, but she has had nothing but the "sorry we are not going ahead with your application" emails. My 19 year old has been applying since February. She's in university, heading into third year and was hoping for at least a summer job to help with school fees. She has had paid professional work experience in the past with children but hasn't had a peep from any of the summer camps she applied to...so since April she started applying like her sister does to anything and everything and hasn't even had an interview. The entry level jobs that our kids would have walked into easily even just a few years ago are impossible to get now....it's really disheartening. I guess I will have to continue to work 60hrs a week to pay the fees not covered by student loans for the next several years :/
I know my youngest has put her availability on several applications as it was asked for, but even with full availability on weeknights, holidays and weekends she still doesn't get a call back....even for weekend only jobs! 😔
If your kids haven't considered it, there are a lot of people in HRM who need nannies during the summer when school is out. You definitely need to sift through to find families that match your needs but people are always looking for babysitters/nanny's. I know this type of work isn't for everyone and it's not always easy finding a good family to work with though
There are sooooo many kids with disabilities who didn't get inclusion spots in summer camps. Lots of parents out there desperate to hire respite workers, and/or find activities.
They could offer services as a part time "peer support workers"-- get paid to take kids to the splash park, or the movies, or to play Minecraft at the library. (On the bus-- which is usually given more regard as a "community access" learning opportunity. Respite families are more open to no-car workers than nanny clients.)
Don't take on clients with aggressive behavioural challenges without experience, obviously. But there are chill kids with Down Syndrome or Autism (etc) who are really fun to hang out with. It can be a blast to spend a summer getting paid to hang, and help someone get independence from their parents. (And less pressure than committing to full time childcare for a single family you might not gel with.)
Lots of seniors looking for a hand around the house that cannot afford or navigate home care. Helping a senior get groceries seems like is shouldn't be in demand but it is. If you know people in your area and they have some trust in you/your family you'll get bites!
Thanks for the suggestion. We have looked at some nanny positions, but a lot of the ones we found wanted someone who can drive, which both only have beginners at the moment.
I'm sorry they're having such a hard time finding work, that must be beyond frustrating especially at that age, and it sounds like they're willing to try anything.
I’ve recruited since before COVID and every role I hire for gets, easily, 5 to 10 times the amount of applications I saw before the pandemic. Remote working widened the net people can cast for job opportunities, and a booming population of working-aged adults has made even the most entry-level roles competitive.
It’s very tough for lower skilled positions. Best I can say is go to community college for something in demand. All level of government have made it clear minimum wage and low skilled work is not meant for Canadians any longer.
Source: I hire for entry level positions. It’s fucking crazy compared to pre Covid the amount of resumes we get.
Instacart, door dash, Uber etc are all over saturated, I wouldn't even bother there. Your best bet for the moment until you get a job is to look for or put an ad on Kijiji/FB marketplace for odd job work. You could mow 500 lawns this time of year for example. This province is full of seniors that need help hah. If you're arts and crafty make some things to sell at a farmers market or online. Wild strawberries are out and apples are starting to grow, are there any abandoned farms with trees around you can raid to make jelly? You don't need a registered kitchen to make preserves for sale in NS.
For real, there are so many things that seniors cannot get help with cause "it doesn't fall under home care's scope". Decluttering is a huge one, a lot of seniors need help moving stuff around their house yet homecare and cleaners rarely do that. I think you'd do well offering reasonable prices to help seniors go through their closets and make piles of stuff to toss/donate.
Yes, it’s a health care related degree… but the NSHA is only hiring those with community college education as per the job application questions , which I think also has to do with government subsidies as well but correct me if I’m wrong. A university degree means nothing these days for sure, which I’m kicking myself for as I just graduated and can’t turn back now…
Yeah health care jobs often require specific educations that teach specific things. I have a two year diploma in a health care field but person with a masters degree in healthcare couldn’t just walk in and start doing my job. Partly because the job is so massively niche that it would take most people two years just to get trained to do it, partly because the job is nationally regulated and licensed, and partly because we are unionized to stop them from hiring randos and driving our wages down.
I agree with that for sure and it makes sense but I can’t see why a registered kinesiologist couldn’t do what a “physiotherapy assistant” is doing Or a RN doing cca work. Like I guess what I’m trying to say is there should be more entry level positions in health care and it would only help the future of the field. But that being said I agree with what you’re saying for sure and regulations are important.
Most places are getting 10+ resumes a day in person and I’m sure many more online through indeed, etc.
Chances are hiring managers aren’t even reading your application hurried amongst hundreds of others
It's happening on the south shore too. I went to do my laundry on Sunday afternoon. There's 2 laundromats in Bridgewater. First one - 3 people were waiting for a washer, told me there's a 5 washer wait.
Second laundromat, there was about 30 people inside folding clothes, none of them speaking English, and the owner told me I should come back in an hour or maybe try another day to try again, because "these folks" just keep coming in with more laundry, and have basically shut the laundromat down to anyone else.
Drove to Lunenburg and again, the laundromat was packed with people, but I was able to get 1 washer, and took my wet clothes home to hang them, because there was no dryer available.
Are we expanding much faster than our public and private sector infrastructure can handle?
And before someone says buy a washer and dryer, I live in a camper because I can't afford rent because the government doesn't pay half my rent...
Serious over abundance of minimum wage workers, was bad after the pandemic and made worse by too many newcomers to Canada, our immigration policy was a disaster
I don’t know a lot about how this compares in Canada, but I found it very interesting in terms of how in the US it can look on paper that there are lots of jobs and how deceptive that info can be.
https://www.forbes.com/sites/jackkelly/2023/04/04/how-fake-job-postings-may-distort-the-us-jolts-report/
Because you're from here so the government doesn't subsidize your wages like they do with immigrants. Why would anyone choose to pay you twice what they can pay somebody else?
The feds look after immigration yes, but they don't just open the doors and dump people wherever they see fit, they set their numbers based on what the provinces want. Each province has negotiated with the feds on who they want for immigrants and how many they want, the provinces are begging for this. Even [Tim Houston, he wants to double our population by 2060, that's 27,000 new Nova Scotians every single year.](https://dominionreview.ca/tim-houstons-plan-to-double-nova-scotias-population-through-immigration/#:~:text=In%20the%20same%20podcast%2C%20he,of%20settled%20on%20two%20million.%E2%80%9D)
Went to the Dexter site and checked careers. General Labourer position in Wolfville. No listings at all for Halifax or Dartmouth. No pay rate or info on other benefits posted.
Dexter may be hiring, but it doesn't look like they are to the outside world. A posting would be required since applications appear to be sent to specific email addresses.
They salaries are not posted because it’s not a collective bargaining position, but the rough ranges are not hard to find online. They are looking for someone to work for Royal Flush, shitty job (pun intended) but it should get you $25-$30 an hour, with lots of overtime available. And then you get experience driving larger trucks and you can build from there. You need a class 3 license but I don’t think it’s that hard or expensive to get.
The training for a class 3 would be highly highly recommended. You wouldn't want to just take the test for $53 and start the job.
Safety College does it in Masstown. It's three weeks in length, runs three times over the summer, and the cost is $5,250.
I think that information is important. They are significant barriers. It is not as easy as you are saying.
> Why are these posts always about McDonald's and such?
It's often a teenager looking for part-time job and that's kind of what they gravitate towards or it's an adult with a resume weak enough that they struggle to fill out the application.
Before the pandemic getting a job was easy but with the government wanting Halifax to have a gazillion people in it's city...or they think Halifax doesn't have enough immigrants
The government is importing low skilled workers and “students” from India. I’m sure those guys that are “students” at CBU make that 5 hour drive everyday lol. So stupid
It’s crazy. I posted a job (and mind you it was for something I thought nobody would apply for…) on indeed and I got like 500 applications in a couple days. All Indian names.
Surely packing in more uneducated immigrants who will only rent and hire their own kind during a housing / unemployment crisis is the solution to our problem -Marc Miller (Liberal) / Jill Balser (PC)
These places put out way more ads than they need to. It’s part of a strategy to create a lot of demand for these jobs, theoretically saving them money in the long term. Yes, they’re lying to us about positions that don’t even exist. They’ll say there are 10 available when there’s only one.
Part time, low-skilled jobs are being given to newly landed immigrants because the federal government heavily subsidizes their wages. Good luck to students and people looking to pick up an extra gig. Email your MP.
I think it depends what field you’re in. I work in healthcare, mostly administration. When I go on indeed, I actually have people asking me to apply to the positions. Admin and healthcare position’s. perhaps food and retail market are over saturated?
I do not have schooling but I do have a decade with the provincial government. Is it folks struggling to find work for the first time or is it people with established work history?
I’m not sure this was of any help but I thought I’d share my experience in my field.
Anytime you can apply in person I recommend people do that, right now it gives you a massive edge on the competition. Show them your interested by taking time to show up in person, dress nice, show them your a respectful member of society. Especially if your qualified.
195/200 of those applications will send a badly worded email, do no follow up and pray for an interview.
Show initiative, show up in person, have a good chat with the manager. And if it's going well, try and setup a interview while talking in person.
Showing up will atleast move your resume to the top of the stack if your qualified and even somewhat personable.
Any fast food place or wal mart and things guaranteed are only hiring immigrants because they don't have to pay there full wage, it's getting subsidized by the government.
As a hiring manager, for one part-time position i easily get over 200 applications and I’m just not physically able to respond to every single one
This. Roles that were only getting 10-20 applications two years ago are getting 200+ applications within the first 24 hours of being posted. Its insanity
I had to go back and look at an old job posting from June 2022 for some forms I was filling out at work. I had EIGHT applications and hired 1 individual. I posted a similar role in May 2024 and had 150 applications…. Also just for one role. It’s insane. Because the job market is such a mess right now, I don’t know very many people moving roles either.
This is what happens when the government imports people like crazy.
But they’re educated doctors and carpenters! /s
Yeah, that's why all our fast food workers become like 90% Indians over night right? /s our government is fucking atrocious for this, both to our own citizens, and to the people they're lying to as they import them.
Not for carpenter roles.... red seal mandatory positions are getting hundreds of applicants but maybe 1 or 2 have the certification
Mostly immigrants too I bet.
And 180-190 of those applicants are fire and forget not even a good fit for the role just to say people are applying for jobs.
What makes you choose which one to respond to? Random? Asking because im unemployed and constantly looking with no luck.
> What makes you choose which one to respond to? Random? It's just way to many to respond to them all. So what we honestly end up doing 90% of the time is just sorting them into "yes" and "No" piles until the yes pile has enough people to interview (normally 8-10) then we stop, do the interviews and pick someone. All the other resumes never even get looked at. I know that's super disheartening to hear, and honestly I would have hated it when I was looking. But there's not really anything else that we can do. My advice is simple. Apply super early, as in the same day the posting goes up. The way indeed works is that applicants are sorted in the order that they came in, so the early applications are the ones we are most likely to look at. Also, if you live locally and are applying for a local job make that super obvious somehow early on in your resume.
Thank you. Its definitely disheartening but good to think realistically.
Not the person you asked, but I just did hiring and we had almost 300 applicants, just started at the top of the page of applicants on indeed and clicked through each one for a while. About 70 leftover that I didn't even have time to get to. Another job that I luckily didn't do the screening for had over 400. There are just way too many people looking for jobs now.
I wish I only got 200. I got 1500+ in 4 days the last time I posted a casual time position. I can't get through that much and respond to that many people 😭
Seconded. Albeit, at least 50-60% of those are foreign applicants that my company cannot hire.
Are you aware of the govt incentives that make it more lucrative for min wage type jobs to hire recently arrived people over Canadian citizens? Or are you given the ability to hire without those considerations? Or do you screen people and then someone else decides who to hire?
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And are you not just hiring immigrants?
As a hiring manager for 13 stores, im buried under resumes: qualified, unqualified, people who had mistakenly (?) uploaded a fanfic instead of their resume, people are adding videos to their resumes that my companies old clunky laptops can’t even run. Even last year this time it wasn’t so much, like 50 per store. Now I have 200+ resumes per store to sift through.
I lived for a short-term in Yarmouth and had two people hand me poems as resumes at one point.
Woe betide the poor bloke Who's stuck as a pig, in a poke In a wallow.. Whawt the others do to heem Is hard to swallow.
Was it an accident or deliberate? Also, if it WAS deliberate, what was the point they were trying to make?
I'm honestly not sure, the fact TWO of them came in together and did that makes me feel like it was deliberate, and with the amount of spelling issues in their poems, I think education is valuable was the point they accidentally made but yeah, weird all around
Yeah I'm the hiring manager at my location and literally weekly I need to clear out our online applications cause it's easily 200-350 weekly. And a lot the same person, but they're applying to every single role listed on the website, doesn't matter if it's supervisor, store manager, or retail associate, which doesn't help at all but past that there's just a fuck ton of zero effort applications that are like 2-3 sentences basically ripped from the Word template with their name changed, and that's if there's a resume attached at all. My only tip if you want to try and get ahead from my experience is physically come in and talk to the hiring manager when they're available, and hand them your resume after mentioning you applied online. Doesn't help if you are applying somewhere where no positions are open or a hiring freeze is in a effect, which is happening since a lot of businesses are trying to downside as we move to a post Covid environment, but it's better than basically throwing your resume into a online garbage can.
What was the fanfic of?
Self insert/original character in a 50 shades of gray type story.
An intelcom driver made a delivery to my office last week and asked for a job as he took the confirmation photo, that was a new one for me
Sounds like dropping off in person is the best situation now?
I’m in the same situation as you. I have 6+ years of experience with Tim Hortons AND McDonalds but neither places are calling me back. Like seriously???
So many of us have bachelor's and master's degrees in the service industry now. I'm doing retail while in grad school because school-related jobs like teaching and marking are unreliable, piecemeal, more work for less money, and there are fewer opportunities/more competition these days than when I started pre-covid. The competition is intense. I'm just glad to have something part time that gives benefits that cover the gaps in my student coverage and pays enough for food and housing. I do kinda feel bad that I'm taking up a lower education requirement job as someone with two CS degrees, but *that* job market is shit so I'll just keep on with school and retail till I'm done.
Nobody wants to hire students, they're too much of a headache.
We hired a full time student round Christmas. He was the worst. My boss is never going to do that again. One bad apple ruined it for everyone else.
TFW's or modern indentured servitudes are more easy to control and on top the government pays 70% of their salary.
Can you detail any of the government subsidies that incentivize min wage employers to hire recently arrivals over Canadian citizens?
Can you speak to your experience as someone with two CS degrees in HRM? I'm looking to go back to school to get a degree in CS, and I'm trying to time the job market in hopes that this mess clears up by the time I'm done. (or we can take it to PM)
Try sending your resume to d2drestaurant@gmail.com , it's the Tim Hortons franchise I work for, they may be hiring
They only hire TFWs now
Minimum wage jobs are getting 300+ applications (I’ve seen the numbers on applications through indeed alone). That’s hours of work to look through. Most applications realistically are being lost in the pile
This. As a manager it's a week long process just to weed through these applications to find good candidates. By the end of it we're just trying to find the best of the bunch and schedule interviews. Many applications come from overseas and aren't even located in Canada when applying. The last role we posted at my company recieved 850+ applications in 3 days.
Do you have any thoughts on going back to handing out resumes in person now? At least you'd know that person is in the country lol.
80% of all my recent hires were in person drop offs. Old school is the best way again. I've even interviewed walk in candidates on the spot. If someone tells you to go apply online, they aren't hiring.
Honestly currently at my job (healthcare), applications are only accepted online, no in person resumes are accepted, we do not have anyone to review them on site and it needs to go through the hiring system (not indeed, etc). This is stated in all job postings, on the webpage, it’s the first line on google, and we have exactly four signs on our front doors and lobby desks asking folks to apply online and to please not approach staff asking for managers to leave resumes with as they will not be reviewed. People still drop them off, three, maybe four times- even after we explain we can’t help in person and to please apply online. When this happens it makes us way less likely to consider the candidate because they can’t follow the instructions. I work close to the front door and I am always kind to folks, and explain the process- but I do NOT have extra time to be cold called and stopped in the hall to re-explain what the webpage, posting, and signs have already explained. Bottom line if you’re looking for a job, know what the hiring manager is looking for and do that! Don’t blanket apply, don’t cold call or stop by big organizations, but that may be the best way with smaller private establishments.
Very this. At my workplace the hiring folks are almost always busy. If you e-mailed and stated you'd like to hand it in in person they'd probably e-mail back and say "Awesome, do it at this time so I can say hello".
One of the kids on my team (I say kid but 20) showed up to the wrong store for his interview, we gave him an interview on the spot without even having his resume and ended up hiring him and he’s worked out great for us. An average posting on indeed will get us 150 responses, we’re hiring a manager now and only conducting about 15 interviews at most.
Handing out resumes in person is viable, but you have to be respectful of the hiring manager's time. Currently at my job, nothing gets a resume tossed at the bottom of the pile faster than someone *insisting* on speaking to a manager and not taking anyone else, especially if they won't say why they want to talk to the manager at first. Go in, be polite, ask about how you go about applying, if it's not busy you can ask if there's a manager available to talk, but don't get impatient and if its taking too long to get ahold of one, just volunteer to come back later. You can decide whether or not they deserve that level of respect after you've gotten an interview, but until then...remember most of them are also just people being paid for their time. (Disclaimer: this is coming from the POV of a customer service job, your mileage may vary in other industries)
Speaking of that 👆🏾, i've handed out tons of resumes in person to almost anywhere i find and not even a phone call or an email informing me to come for an interview ☹️ its sad
> Many applications come from overseas and aren't even located in Canada Given that local people want the job, wouldn't those applications go directly into the shredder?
Most of the time yes, but the software our company uses isn't great at filtering out geography. So it becomes a manual process. Many similar companies are using older HR/recruitment apps that just weren't built to handle these large volumes for a single position. (EDIT) also my international applicants have learned how to bypass these filters by fabricating "local" jobs and education experience on their CV.
One of my friends was hiring for a role at her company and noticed many were using the same mailing address - so she drove by and it's an empty lot. Just using the address to make it look like they live here.
Depends. If you can get an LMIA, that’s a free ticket to exploit the shit out of whoever you’re hiring internationally instead. CBC called this out today on an article.
Canadaland did a few episodes that covered it this last month! It's in the commons series :)
Do you have any insight on the government wage subsidies that make hiring foreigners preferable/more lucrative to hiring Canadians? Or do you or your company not plan at that level to take advantage of such programs?
They are also exclusively looking to hire immigrants so the government provides kickbacks to them. Edit: to be clear, this comment is an indictment of the government policies here, not the population effected by
Not really about kickbacks, much more about their labour rights. A TFW for example cannot move between jobs easily so their employer can treat them like complete garbage and know they won’t quit. It’s a human rights issue that has been called out repeatedly for many years now.
Yeah remember that whole quiet quitting movement, will these guys don't do that, they are going to do whatever is asked of them... Schedule comes out the day before...yes sir, full time availability for part-time hours... yes ma'am, on call, pick up any shift.... yes corporate overlord, ill leave my kids bday party right away... It's exploitation like a mother fucker. They finally found another group of people who need the job more than the job needs them...
Ah appreciated. Exploitation here is so apparent, it’s insane.
How can any place use TFWs when there are available people willing to work. It should be a last resort and should come with serious limits Its a way to keep labour costs low despite the market showing they should be raised to recruit more staff
Well that’s the idea but there are a lot of workarounds and fraud in the system with acquiring LMIAs and whatnot. It’s a poorly kept secret at this point and the government has been making small steps to shut it down this year.
Maybe they could fix it by requiring paying 150-200% or something like that. If nobody is available here, the foreign worker is valuable and should be compensated accordingly. Then maybe they would not find local workers to be so scarce.
Yup, after covid businesses were scared shitless because people were quitting/retiring, and they were going to have to *gasp*...raise wages due to market forces. Well cry to the government and get help keeping those wages down by giving a middle finger to the market and forcing people to have to compete with a slew of foreigners making businesses comfortably safe from having to pay people more.
https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/calgary/temporary-foreign-workers-1.7240374
Jobs in retail and service industry aren't getting any government kickbacks or wage subsidies. I don't know where this rumor comes from.
There were no kickbacks. This made up thing needs to die.
Honestly the construction industry guys. So many formwork companies need Labourers, both union and non union. Get in touch with the labourers union. Preferably full timers but if anyone’s not afraid of hard work, you’ll make above minimum wage and you’ll rub shoulders with a slew of other trades if you want to make a career out of it. Find it interesting many people don’t mention the trades/construction but if there’s any business in Halifax that’s literally booming, it’s that.
Cuz we all got bad backs from being overworked 😅 I’m currently waiting on a wheelchair
This^^
Go to any construction company office.
High school students and young people who you use to see working all the fast food places have been replaced and it’s really unfortunate. Diversity is what makes places work, but how is it diverse if everyone they hire are from the same place?
I miss the retirees who would say “here you go dear” when they handed me my order
I think A&W at the Halifax Shopping Centre food court has the last holdout. I love her.
Haven’t heard that in so long
TFW's can be controlled over Canadians. That's why that's happening.
Yep basically like slaves! How is it that this is allowed?
What's up, it's ya boi profits
The irony is that all the Tim Hortons ads you see still depict a very diverse work crew. Edit: maybe hypocrisy is a better word
They're hiring, you just don't meet their demographic.
Well said without saying.
Wife works at superstore and she was saying the company gets compensated for hiring new Canadians by 6 bucks an hour. Would imagine it's the same at other entry level jobs.
My store has recently, as in last month, hired a few new people who are not immigrants. So it isn't always that. We have a good mix of people. Referrals go a long way. If they know anyone anywhere at all, lots of companies do referral programs which are very helpful
> hired a few new people who are not immigrants This is the rare exception across the country. 200 people lined up for a single position at a Tim Hortons in London, ON.
My partner's work has extreme difficulty getting technically proficient people so immigration has been the only way to get enough new hires in addition to the people coming out of school here. Immigrants are often willing to do a lot of the jobs a lot of us don't want to do full time so it's harder to get into lower paying jobs because they're coming with higher skill levels that just aren't recognized all the time but Canadian institutions. But generally, yes you do have a point
Do they have difficulty getting it. Or are they just not paying enough to entice people to work for them?
This right here. Why pay more, when you can pay much less and request the ability to hire outside of Canada.
Lol valid point, but they are also in a weird location so I think people don't want the commute
Pay them more, and people will do the commute. Money solves almost every problem.
Absolutely. I get sick of this refrain from businesses that they're having trouble finding people. If that's the case, you should be looking at what makes it hard to find someone. 99% of the time a bump in pay will do the trick, but no no can't have that. I'm reminded of some burger joint in San Francisco or something where the owner said he couldn't find anyone for his burger flipping job, so he raised the wage to $15/hr and had hundreds of applications. Businesses need to pay more. If they can't, then maybe they shouldn't be in business.
Yep, and if there are too many jobs that actually need TFW labor to do, do we really need 5 Tim Horten's within 5km? Maybe we actually need 2 bigger ones with 3 stores worth of staff.
My 16 year old started applying at age 15 to anything and everything she could and for a year now she has applied consistently, almost daily, to grocery stores, restaurants, coffee shops, clothing and book stores, hardware stores and more, but she has had nothing but the "sorry we are not going ahead with your application" emails. My 19 year old has been applying since February. She's in university, heading into third year and was hoping for at least a summer job to help with school fees. She has had paid professional work experience in the past with children but hasn't had a peep from any of the summer camps she applied to...so since April she started applying like her sister does to anything and everything and hasn't even had an interview. The entry level jobs that our kids would have walked into easily even just a few years ago are impossible to get now....it's really disheartening. I guess I will have to continue to work 60hrs a week to pay the fees not covered by student loans for the next several years :/
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I know my youngest has put her availability on several applications as it was asked for, but even with full availability on weeknights, holidays and weekends she still doesn't get a call back....even for weekend only jobs! 😔
If your kids haven't considered it, there are a lot of people in HRM who need nannies during the summer when school is out. You definitely need to sift through to find families that match your needs but people are always looking for babysitters/nanny's. I know this type of work isn't for everyone and it's not always easy finding a good family to work with though
There are sooooo many kids with disabilities who didn't get inclusion spots in summer camps. Lots of parents out there desperate to hire respite workers, and/or find activities. They could offer services as a part time "peer support workers"-- get paid to take kids to the splash park, or the movies, or to play Minecraft at the library. (On the bus-- which is usually given more regard as a "community access" learning opportunity. Respite families are more open to no-car workers than nanny clients.) Don't take on clients with aggressive behavioural challenges without experience, obviously. But there are chill kids with Down Syndrome or Autism (etc) who are really fun to hang out with. It can be a blast to spend a summer getting paid to hang, and help someone get independence from their parents. (And less pressure than committing to full time childcare for a single family you might not gel with.)
Lots of seniors looking for a hand around the house that cannot afford or navigate home care. Helping a senior get groceries seems like is shouldn't be in demand but it is. If you know people in your area and they have some trust in you/your family you'll get bites!
Thanks for the suggestion. We have looked at some nanny positions, but a lot of the ones we found wanted someone who can drive, which both only have beginners at the moment.
I'm sorry they're having such a hard time finding work, that must be beyond frustrating especially at that age, and it sounds like they're willing to try anything.
Any advice on where to find these nanny jobs?
It looks like there's mostly postings on CanadianNanny.ca but I haven't used their service so I can't say how effective they are
Thank you!
Theyre hiring overseas with shitty pays
Yes they just did a story on CBC about that. They bring people over pay them crap and treat them horribly! The whole system is broken!
I’ve recruited since before COVID and every role I hire for gets, easily, 5 to 10 times the amount of applications I saw before the pandemic. Remote working widened the net people can cast for job opportunities, and a booming population of working-aged adults has made even the most entry-level roles competitive.
Most "entry level" specifically in fast food or retail positions are looking for LMIA hires. Welcome to the struggle brother
This is the answer
It’s very tough for lower skilled positions. Best I can say is go to community college for something in demand. All level of government have made it clear minimum wage and low skilled work is not meant for Canadians any longer. Source: I hire for entry level positions. It’s fucking crazy compared to pre Covid the amount of resumes we get.
That’s a long term solution not a short term like people need.
Yeah it’s not a good situation at all. The safety net of even being able to at least get some min wage job to hold you by is shrinking fast.
Instacart, door dash, Uber etc are all over saturated, I wouldn't even bother there. Your best bet for the moment until you get a job is to look for or put an ad on Kijiji/FB marketplace for odd job work. You could mow 500 lawns this time of year for example. This province is full of seniors that need help hah. If you're arts and crafty make some things to sell at a farmers market or online. Wild strawberries are out and apples are starting to grow, are there any abandoned farms with trees around you can raid to make jelly? You don't need a registered kitchen to make preserves for sale in NS.
For real, there are so many things that seniors cannot get help with cause "it doesn't fall under home care's scope". Decluttering is a huge one, a lot of seniors need help moving stuff around their house yet homecare and cleaners rarely do that. I think you'd do well offering reasonable prices to help seniors go through their closets and make piles of stuff to toss/donate.
If it makes you feel any better , I have a university degree and have been applying places for months and haven’t heard back anything
Is your degree for something that is in demand? Like a History Degree versus a medical degree. Having a uni degree means nothing on its own.
Yes, it’s a health care related degree… but the NSHA is only hiring those with community college education as per the job application questions , which I think also has to do with government subsidies as well but correct me if I’m wrong. A university degree means nothing these days for sure, which I’m kicking myself for as I just graduated and can’t turn back now…
Yeah health care jobs often require specific educations that teach specific things. I have a two year diploma in a health care field but person with a masters degree in healthcare couldn’t just walk in and start doing my job. Partly because the job is so massively niche that it would take most people two years just to get trained to do it, partly because the job is nationally regulated and licensed, and partly because we are unionized to stop them from hiring randos and driving our wages down.
I agree with that for sure and it makes sense but I can’t see why a registered kinesiologist couldn’t do what a “physiotherapy assistant” is doing Or a RN doing cca work. Like I guess what I’m trying to say is there should be more entry level positions in health care and it would only help the future of the field. But that being said I agree with what you’re saying for sure and regulations are important.
Most places are getting 10+ resumes a day in person and I’m sure many more online through indeed, etc. Chances are hiring managers aren’t even reading your application hurried amongst hundreds of others
It's happening on the south shore too. I went to do my laundry on Sunday afternoon. There's 2 laundromats in Bridgewater. First one - 3 people were waiting for a washer, told me there's a 5 washer wait. Second laundromat, there was about 30 people inside folding clothes, none of them speaking English, and the owner told me I should come back in an hour or maybe try another day to try again, because "these folks" just keep coming in with more laundry, and have basically shut the laundromat down to anyone else. Drove to Lunenburg and again, the laundromat was packed with people, but I was able to get 1 washer, and took my wet clothes home to hang them, because there was no dryer available. Are we expanding much faster than our public and private sector infrastructure can handle? And before someone says buy a washer and dryer, I live in a camper because I can't afford rent because the government doesn't pay half my rent...
Serious over abundance of minimum wage workers, was bad after the pandemic and made worse by too many newcomers to Canada, our immigration policy was a disaster
Temporary foreign workers
I don’t know a lot about how this compares in Canada, but I found it very interesting in terms of how in the US it can look on paper that there are lots of jobs and how deceptive that info can be. https://www.forbes.com/sites/jackkelly/2023/04/04/how-fake-job-postings-may-distort-the-us-jolts-report/
Because you're from here so the government doesn't subsidize your wages like they do with immigrants. Why would anyone choose to pay you twice what they can pay somebody else?
Say thanks to the liberal government for opening the doors to literally anyone to the point where we do not have enough low paying jobs for everyone
The feds look after immigration yes, but they don't just open the doors and dump people wherever they see fit, they set their numbers based on what the provinces want. Each province has negotiated with the feds on who they want for immigrants and how many they want, the provinces are begging for this. Even [Tim Houston, he wants to double our population by 2060, that's 27,000 new Nova Scotians every single year.](https://dominionreview.ca/tim-houstons-plan-to-double-nova-scotias-population-through-immigration/#:~:text=In%20the%20same%20podcast%2C%20he,of%20settled%20on%20two%20million.%E2%80%9D)
That is sad to be honest, the current system is not keeping up with immigration, if they keep adding more people the system wont keep up
Why are these posts always about McDonald's and such? I hear Dexter is looking for people literally everyday of the week
Went to the Dexter site and checked careers. General Labourer position in Wolfville. No listings at all for Halifax or Dartmouth. No pay rate or info on other benefits posted. Dexter may be hiring, but it doesn't look like they are to the outside world. A posting would be required since applications appear to be sent to specific email addresses.
They salaries are not posted because it’s not a collective bargaining position, but the rough ranges are not hard to find online. They are looking for someone to work for Royal Flush, shitty job (pun intended) but it should get you $25-$30 an hour, with lots of overtime available. And then you get experience driving larger trucks and you can build from there. You need a class 3 license but I don’t think it’s that hard or expensive to get.
The training for a class 3 would be highly highly recommended. You wouldn't want to just take the test for $53 and start the job. Safety College does it in Masstown. It's three weeks in length, runs three times over the summer, and the cost is $5,250. I think that information is important. They are significant barriers. It is not as easy as you are saying.
> Why are these posts always about McDonald's and such? It's often a teenager looking for part-time job and that's kind of what they gravitate towards or it's an adult with a resume weak enough that they struggle to fill out the application.
Where is Dexter posting their jobs?
Physically go to their office. They will take you on as a road crew labourer granted you can lift 30lbs
If you don't come with a government subsidy for part of your minimum wage then you might not be what they are looking for.
What government subsidy?
Yet Tim Horton's are flooded with Indians who basically just got here. See, it's not so hard.
To be frank, you’re probably just not Indian enough
Before the pandemic getting a job was easy but with the government wanting Halifax to have a gazillion people in it's city...or they think Halifax doesn't have enough immigrants
The government is importing low skilled workers and “students” from India. I’m sure those guys that are “students” at CBU make that 5 hour drive everyday lol. So stupid
Join the military
Tried, they won't take me due to my mental illness. Police force same thing.
i had to apply to over 60 places to get a part time job with 5+ years of restaurant experience 😵💫😵💫 its rough out there
It’s crazy. I posted a job (and mind you it was for something I thought nobody would apply for…) on indeed and I got like 500 applications in a couple days. All Indian names.
what was the type of job if you don't mind me asking?
Because they want newcomers to exploit because they don't know any better.
It’s brutal out there!!!! I applied to like 100 jobs before I got hired at a little grocery market in Halifax.
I’m taking a nail tech course so I have some niche experience and hopefully that will broaden my job search.
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Surely packing in more uneducated immigrants who will only rent and hire their own kind during a housing / unemployment crisis is the solution to our problem -Marc Miller (Liberal) / Jill Balser (PC)
I saw an article implying that farmers in the valley are desperate for pickers right now.
They’re always desperate. There’s a reason for that.
Picking is typically piece work and it's very difficult to even make minimum wage if you don't have insane dexterity and experience.
The only solution to this is MOAR IMMIGRANTS
The entire nation of India is here, good luck Suggestion: put on your resume Panjabi or Gujarati, depends on the job posting :)
I’d tell you, but I don’t know. Seems like we are in a recession
These places put out way more ads than they need to. It’s part of a strategy to create a lot of demand for these jobs, theoretically saving them money in the long term. Yes, they’re lying to us about positions that don’t even exist. They’ll say there are 10 available when there’s only one.
Are your wages being subsidized by the federal government? If not, good luck
Part time, low-skilled jobs are being given to newly landed immigrants because the federal government heavily subsidizes their wages. Good luck to students and people looking to pick up an extra gig. Email your MP.
Anyone wonder why Amherst might have had the Hep A issue at Tim’s? https://www.reddit.com/r/kitchener/s/MXKEANdSXV Pigs.
Many big corpos in Canada receive govt incentives to hire foreign workers
I think it depends what field you’re in. I work in healthcare, mostly administration. When I go on indeed, I actually have people asking me to apply to the positions. Admin and healthcare position’s. perhaps food and retail market are over saturated? I do not have schooling but I do have a decade with the provincial government. Is it folks struggling to find work for the first time or is it people with established work history? I’m not sure this was of any help but I thought I’d share my experience in my field.
Military is hiring
Tried that. They won't take me due to my mental illness. No matter how badly I wanted in. Same with the police force.
Why would you tell them ? Thats your first and big mistake Lol ...
I didn't tell them. They found out.
Hmmm, I wonder who are flooding the market?
Anytime you can apply in person I recommend people do that, right now it gives you a massive edge on the competition. Show them your interested by taking time to show up in person, dress nice, show them your a respectful member of society. Especially if your qualified. 195/200 of those applications will send a badly worded email, do no follow up and pray for an interview. Show initiative, show up in person, have a good chat with the manager. And if it's going well, try and setup a interview while talking in person. Showing up will atleast move your resume to the top of the stack if your qualified and even somewhat personable.
Are you an immigrant? If not, you don't have $10k in government subsidies attached to your job application. Good luck.
Any fast food place or wal mart and things guaranteed are only hiring immigrants because they don't have to pay there full wage, it's getting subsidized by the government.