Thank you very much.
Restaurants and many small and medium-sized businesses that make up the Canadian food service sector are a critical pillar of our culture, economy and local communities. Before the pandemic struck, our industry comprised over 98,000 establishments from coast to coast to coast, serving about 22 million customers every day and contributing 4% to the country's GDP. Prior to this crisis, the food service sector was Canada's fourth largest employer, directly employing 1.2 million people and was also the number one source of first jobs for young Canadians.
We're also a reflection of Canada's enviable diversity. Women make up 58% of the food service workforce and 31% of restaurant owners, operators and staff belong to a visible minority. Half of all Canadian restaurants are run by talented, hard-working entrepreneurs who came here as immigrants. Immigration was vitally important to our industry before we were hit with COVID-19. This crisis has made the need for reforms all the more critical.
Heading into the pandemic, the restaurant sector was already struggling to fill more than 60,000 vacant positions. One in five Canadians between the ages of 15 and 24 are employed in the restaurant sector, but the workforce participation among teens has been steadily declining, unfortunately.
By its nature, food service is very labour intensive. Finding any staff, let alone staff with applicable skills and experience, has become more challenging than ever.
COVID-19 hit and turned an already challenging situation into a full-blown labour crisis for our industry. The food service sector lost more jobs in the first six weeks of the pandemic than the entire Canadian economy lost during the 2008-09 recession. No other industry comes close to this level of shortfall. One out of every five jobs lost during the initial lockdown from March to April 2020 was in Canada's restaurant sector. During this period, more than 800,000 food service workers lost their jobs or had their hours of work reduced to zero.
At a time when all other industries have recovered an average of 90% of their pandemic job losses, the restaurant sector still hasn't recovered half of the jobs it lost, which represents 300,000 fewer jobs in the Canadian food service sector and roughly 50,000 employees who are not currently working any hours.
By the time restaurants across the country are ready to reopen and bring back their staff, many of these workers will have already found employment elsewhere. What began as a shortage of 60,000 restaurant positions before the pandemic could become a substantially higher labour crisis for our industry, which could jeopardize the ability of many restaurants to stay in business.
We are losing our employees because of the closures and reopenings caused by COVID-19. After the first wave, our employees came back to work, but, after the second wave, a number of them had already decided to find a new job in another field. What we are seeing now, with the third wave, is that a growing number of workers are permanently turning to other industries.
Our industry was already seeking 60,000 workers before COVID-19; it is easy to imagine the number of people we will need for the next reopening.
Knowing that the demographic pyramid will escalate that labour problem, we are looking into ways to attract and retain talent in our industry. Immigration is definitely a crucial one. It comes with its share of challenges, but it is worth it, especially since immigrants enrich our industry from their culture to our table.
Persistent labour shortages put a damper on investment and expansion. Even existing businesses are at risk if they can't be properly staffed. The restaurant industry is one of Canada's largest employers, the biggest source of first-time jobs for youth and an important part of every urban and rural community across the country.
We are therefore proposing a comprehensive national labour strategy that includes a food service stream of the temporary foreign worker program, which will be provided to you following this session.
In the interest of time, here are three recommendations for you to remember today:
The first is the fast-track list process for specific jobs, which gets prioritized by provinces, from which Quebec, for instance, made the mistake of taking out four key positions for our industry.
The second one is to reduce the administrative burden of the small business owners who most heavily rely on the program by increasing minimum temporary foreign worker work permits to two years, reducing the $1,000 fee and redefining it as a “per position” fee.
The third is to ensure that successful applicants are included in a form of fast track for immigrant approval.
Finally, as Canada continues to shift—