Dawson Creek booming, but employers are having a hard time finding enough workers
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This booming town is busting at the seams, unable to keep up with the constant influx of workers who need a place to sleep, eat and spend their sizable disposable income.
Packed restaurants, full hotels, empty store shelves and shiny new trucks are the hallmarks of this northeast B.C town that is reaping the benefits of a booming oil-and-gas industry.
In a time when many British Columbians can't find work, Dawson Creek business owners struggle every day to find staff.
"You just have to get lucky and hang on to that one employee because you likely won't find another for a long time," said Tri Nguyen, manager of Le's Family Restaurant and its attached motel. His family has owned the diner for the past 20 years.
Competition for employees can be fierce. A competitor poached one of Nguyen's waitresses, causing him to painstakingly scour the town for another waitress who gets $9.50 an hour plus whatever tips they make. Nguyen pays cooks $13.00 an hour to start and dishwashers $11.00 an hour.
The shortage of workers is causing businesses to shorten their work hours, creating lineups for restaurants and delaying progress at the naturalgas sites.
Gas from northeast B.C. - the only gas-producing region in the province - is part of an industry that directly employs 12,000 people.
This town - surrounded by fields of cereal crops such as wheat, barley and canola - is anything but sleepy.
Dawson Creek's population of 11,000 people - and its transient workforce - jostle for services on its one established main street and at newer, busier big-box stores.
Help-wanted signs are plastered on windows throughout the town. Businesses constantly compete to offer high enough wages to attract employees.
Most jobs pay above minimum wage - a typical fast-food gig starts at $12 to $13 an hour.
But stores are sometimes forced to close early because they simply can't find enough staff.
And oil-and-gas workers routinely complain about the limited number of places serving early-morning breakfast. Many have to leave town by 5: 45 a.m. to make it to the work sites on time.
Nguyen would like to feed the hungry workers, but he can barely find enough staff for existing shifts.
"If at 5 a.m., we open and there's a line up at the door - which I could easily see happen - and we don't have enough waitresses, service will be affected and the workers might not come back."
But it isn't his customers Nguyen is most scared of losing.
"I don't want to stress my employees out, or they'll be out of here working at a restaurant down the street," he said.
Nguyen has even lured employees to town from Vancouver and Eastern Canada by paying for their flights and providing free places to live.
Fatima Mangalji, owner of the Inn On The Creek and other motels in the Peace Region, has taken her quest for employees one step further. She applied for foreign workers through a government-run program aimed to help communities that can't be supported by their local labour forces.
"I've found Mexican and Filipino employees who typically come to work for a year," she said.
"I can't find enough people from Dawson Creek to work, so this is a good option but takes a lot of time to happen."
Mangalji has also hired people from Portugal and England.
She has placed ads in newspapers in Vancouver, but with little luck. Now, she is in the process of hiring more foreign employees.
It's not only the service sector that struggles to find employees. Although many people choose to abandon server or cashier posts in favour of high-paying oil-and-gas jobs, the field still struggles to find workers.
"A project might take us an extra day or two because we're not able to get the people we need," said EnCana spokesman Brian Lieverse.
Oil-and-gas companies such as EnCana are constantly looking for new people.
Unskilled and semi-skilled labourers are paid $18 to $28 an hour, with 90 per cent of people making more than $24, according to Platoon Oilfield Construction Services, a company that hires workers for oil-and-gas companies.
Journeymen pipefitters and welders make the big bucks - they rake in anywhere from $85 to $105 an hour.
And workers from out of town don't need to worry about hotel or food costs. Most workers are given $150 a day for room and board, and it's up to them to decide whether to be thrifty or spend the whole amount.
Based on these numbers, a welder working year-round could potentially make around $200,000 a year and receive $54,000 for room and board.
"A lot of people don't realize there are as many jobs available in the North as there are," Lieverse said.
"They would like to find work close to home but, if the jobs aren't there, they have to look farther."
Nguyen also understands why people are wary of this northern city, where temperatures can easily dip to the -20s during the winter.
When he advertises in Vancouver newspapers, a lot of people phone to ask where Dawson Creek is.
"They can't believe somewhere can be a 14-hour drive from Vancouver and still be in B.C." he said.
It's very rare to see tourists in Dawson Creek during the winter, yet the majority of hotels have flashed "no vacancy" signs for months, even though there are approximately 1,000 hotel rooms in town that rent for an average of about $110 a night.
Oil-and-gas companies book rooms in bulk for months at a time, in an attempt to ensure their workers have a place to sleep at the end of the day.
Nguyen's 22-room motel, whose rooms rent for $100 a night, has been full for the past three months and have been extremely busy for the past few years.
The parking lot is empty when oil-and-gas workers are away at well sites but packed with expensive, new trucks during the night.
"A lot of workers stay at trailer parks or camp during the summer but have to leave in the winter because they close down. Then they all try to find hotel rooms at the same time," Nguyen said.
Most workers stay for one or two months, but many rooms are booked indefinitely because they pass them on to friends when they leave.
Mangalji's motel, where rooms go for $150 a night, has also been booked for months. She wants to add on a much-needed addition but will have to find enough staff to clean the rooms before she begins construction.
Nguyen has heard plenty of frustrated calls from tourists who travel through Dawson Creek on their way up the Alaska Highway.
"All of a sudden it hits them, because they've called 20 hotels and they're all booked. The last thing they expect is for all the hotels to be completely full," he said.
Big-box stores also suffer due to lack of employees. Walmart, for instance, is routinely out of staple products, such as bread and milk.
Still, this hasn't stopped new businesses from opening. A Browns Social House and Quiznos have been added to the town's dining options in the past six months. A Wendy's is on the way.
Dawson Creek's mayor, Mike Bernier, in Vancouver recently for a conference, handed out business cards to Occupy Vancouver protesters, promising them he would find them jobs in Dawson Creek, provided they are hard workers.
"We have basically zero unemployment in Dawson Creek - it's the lowest in the province," Bernier said.
While the protesters he talked to said they wouldn't take him up on his offer, he still encourages others to move to the city.
If the Site C dam is approved, the population will jump again, he said.
Workers would only have to drive 35 minutes from Dawson Creek to get to the site, making the city one of the closest locations to live.
He predicts around 600 families will move to the city if the B.C. Hydro project gets the go-ahead.
"Site C could be seven to 10 years of employment for a lot of people. They won't be living in hotels - they'll want a permanent place to live."
A Holiday Inn is in its final construction stages, a welcome addition for oil-and-gas workers fighting for a place to stay. Two other hotel companies have expressed interest in the area, Bernier said.
"Dawson Creek will get much busier if Site C is approved. We will see even more workers in town needing a place to stay."
But Bernier said there is a downside to all this prosperity. Low-income earners struggle to find a place to live. The average onebedroom suite in the city starts at around $900 and there are few vacant units available because oil-and-gas workers who plan to stay in the area for a while often opt to stay in an apartment instead of a hotel.
"Single parents or young families are saying they are having an increasingly hard time earning enough money to live," Bernier said.
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