Thank you, Mr. Chair, and thank you to the committee for inviting us to speak to you today.
We note that this committee is looking at six issues: economic growth, vulnerable Canadians, R and D, rural issues, urban issues, and red tape. We could be in every one of those committees.
Today we're going to talk about maximizing employment opportunities for Canadians. I have a powerpoint presentation, which is not on a powerpoint, but I have a deck here that I'll be referring to.
If there's an overall key message I would like to leave with the committee today it's that the restaurant industry will continue to play a significant role in job creation across Canada, especially with youth, first-time jobs, as well as skilled jobs.
If I may turn to the next page, I don't know if some of you saw this several years back, but it was a United Way campaign. It was a good campaign in what they were trying to do, but you can see here they had a new Canadian working in a dungeon. It was obviously not a very good job, and he needed to get out of that job into a nurse's position.
I started in my position months before this ad went out. I showed this to my board. My board has 30 members—which is a lot, and we can talk about that later—with everyone from CEOs of multinational corporations to chefs for fine dining to independent restaurateurs, and to a person they were angry and hurt. Many of them, including CEOs of multi-billion dollar corporations, started as dishwashers. Many of them have their kids starting as dishwashers. It became apparent that if we don't tell our story, other people will tell it for us and this is the story they're going to tell.
I'd like to move to the second page, which is the United Way campaign three years later. It shows a builder of careers, of jobs, of communities, builders in urban and rural settings in every community. As an organization and as a sector, whether we're talking about agrifood, health, tourism, or economic development, we're positioning ourselves, and you should see us as part of the solution, not part of the problem.
As we talk about employment we move to the next slide, what is called an infograph. We have 18 million Canadians visit us every day. We give back almost $300 million to the community. We support 1.1 million jobs and we support $250,000 indirect jobs in agrifood primarily. It says $65 billion, but we're a $69 billion industry.
We are the number one creator of first-time jobs. We hire underprivileged people, people from the aboriginal community, seniors. We hire from all categories. We'll take them all. We are the number two creator of jobs for youth. These jobs are across Canada.
The next page refers to a labour force survey and Statistics Canada information. We looked at sectors and put it together. You may remember 2009 and 2010. We are a reflection of consumers; if they are uncertain we feel it. Even during those times we continued to create jobs. We were the third largest job creator. The others were a mix of private and public sector jobs. We were just behind construction. Even during our tough times we were creating jobs.
We ask our members to look at the economy. We meet with the bank governor, Finance, and premiers because our members are the canaries in the mine shaft. With 18 million visits a day, they know what's going on in the economy, and 80% are saying that in the next six months they're going to maintain or increase their employment.
We asked them what their most important issues were. Seventy per cent of their costs are food and labour. Those are the issues, but I want to point out that a third said that a shortage of skilled labour is a concern for them—it depends which region—and another 28% said it was a shortage of unskilled labour.
We are anticipating a labour shortage and we are feeling it in some regions. We can do statistics and data and we strongly recommend we need better labour market information, but you can see we're facing a skill shortage and many of our members are feeling it now.
Mr. Chair, in conclusion, we're a significant employer in every community, and we have a key role with youth employment and first-time jobs.
We have a shortage of skilled labour issue. It's becoming a growing issue. We strongly support and need a federal-provincial private sector strategy to deal with future labour shortages, and government policy should enhance and not stifle restaurant growth.
Thank you, Mr. Chair.