Waterloo region lost 3 times more jobs in 1st year of COVID than during 2009 recession

The lunch-time rush at Angie's in Waterloo never failed to keepTeresa Huegleon her toes.

Pre-COVIDHeuglehad 15 employees, rotating through the week and weekend.

"We had a restaurant that was serving 100 people plus the patio and the takeouts, so I would have a staff ofnine or 10 on a busy Saturday or Sunday," Huegle told CBC News.

That number is now down to five and she doesn't see when she might be able to re-hire the others.

"People count on their paycheque every two weeks. Everybody knows why they're going to work, there's a means to an end why you're there."

Her staff are among the16,500 people in Waterloo region who lost their jobs last year as the economy contracted due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

The 2020 figure dwarfs the impact of the2009 recession, when 5,700 jobs were lost in the region.

Accommodation, food sector still struggle

The reduction of economic activity is reflected in the 2020 Annual Labour Force Report, which was brought before aRegion of Waterloo committee meeting Tuesday.

The COVID-19 pandemic has not had the same impact on everyone, said the report. For example, females, youth, and part-time workers were most likely to experience employment loss.

The unemployment rate jumped 4.3 percentage points to 9.6 per cent, a similar rate as the 2009 recession 9.7 per cent.

Matthew Chandy, manager of economic development for the Region of Waterloo, said the greatest losses of employment occurred in accommodation and food services.

"A big part of 2020 was the impact of COVID on our economy as a whole, but if you look at it in more detail, certain sectors were hit harder than others," Chandy told CBC News.

"We know for example that the accommodation and food sectors were impacted significantly and is actually at 55 per cent today as far as the workforce goes, than pre-COVID."

Since the start of the pandemic, the workforce ended the year at 95 per cent of pre-COVID employment numbers.

Although most industries saw a loss of employment, manufacturing and public administration saw employment gains in 2020 when compared to 2019.

Chandy said the report reflects information gathered prior to the current lockdown.

"We are going to have to wait to see how the current lockdown affects certain industries that will again be potentially hit because of this lockdown and how it affects the workforce," he said.

"Aside from the lockdown, we're seeing certain industries see some small increases and our unemployment rate starting to drop," Chandy said.

"So, those are some positive signs, but industry as a whole I think is still experiencing obviously a lot of challenges and the workforce is still trying to adjust to the impact of COVID and the various closures."

Job search tough

Career management consultant and owner of Career Aviators, Wayne Greenway, says anyone looking for a job right now should use new and innovative ways to search.

"Job search is really tough," Greenway told CBC News.

"An absolute minimum they should plan on at least a month of full-time searching for every $10,000 in salary they want to make, unless they're in some kind of position that's in very high demand of course."

Greenway said he has seen "real struggles" with people who've been out of work for a long time sometimes months.

"What we find is that they're searching for the job one way. We have people who have made 100 to 200 applications through online platforms and with no success. A lot of times they're searching the wrong way," he said.

"We find that people, maybe they're landing an interview and going through the screening interview but not getting to the second interview and that's because they're not preparing properly for the interview.

"A lot of people, especially if they're people who are sort of in the middle of their career, when they were searching years and years ago, it was a different world. So, they basically wrote up their resume and they contacted employers and jobs were more plentiful, so the search strategy was completely different than it is now," Greenway added.