TORONTO – If you bank on surviving this pandemic, you will need a job.  Better yet, a full-time job.  In November 2021, there were 43,000 new jobs reported in Toronto; 68,000 in Ontario; 154,000 in Canada. We could use a feel-good moment in this pandemic. 

So what is out there for us?  Here are the hot domains:  health care (obviously!) and social assistance, wholesale and retail trade, construction, finance, insurance, real estate, rental and leasing.  Take your pick.  As promising as it sounds, the news headlines do not shed light on real life issues at play here, namely the nature of the job (sanitation?), shift work (graveyard?), number of hours (sayonara gym) and above all else – the risk of exposure to Omicron, the newest grandchild of COVID-19.  It is an unsettling feeling to start a new chapter in one’s life.  Intimidating to be in a new workplace, a new environment with unknown people shrouded in facial masks, expecting and demanding that you perform at your best.  Take all the regular stress you would feel under “normal” circumstances and compound it a hundred-fold, a thousand-fold – this is what our new employees face in this new world hammered by uncertainty. 

If there are thousands upon thousands of new jobs floating around Toronto, where can we find them?  Before the digital age, we would take to the “Classified” section of the newspaper and circle opportunities with a sharpie.  At the most simple level, I searched “find jobs” and conveniently, Google immediately wanted to know my location.  Oh great.  Maybe Google can go visit my pseudo-person directly and offer them a job.  That would save them from sifting through all 6,840,000,000 results.  Because that’s what it feels like when you are searching for a job.  Just one snowflake smack dab in the middle of a blizzard.   Top search hits:  Cook.  Cleaner.  Isn’t there a button in Google – “I’m Feeling Lucky”.  Perhaps I should try harder.      

“This site can’t be reached.  www.jobbank.gc.ca took too long to respond”.  Not a good sign.  Because the whole of Canada is looking for a job as we speak.  When the page finally loads, it insists on throwing me 50 km away from Toronto.  After this push and pull of trying to convince them that I would like to remain within 5 km of downtown Toronto, 1,994 results appear.  Let’s stick to page one:  legal assistants, law clerks, cooks, techies.  Did you know that a restaurant supervisor can make $2,950 a month?  Nothing is said about the terms of reference for potential lockdowns though.  And given that the government has tapered its emergency wage support, financial security in light of potential Omicron lockdowns this winter is questionable.       

Let’s try https://ca.indeed.com/ .  At 5 km within downtown Toronto, 818 jobs are posted.  Mortuary Assistant ($1,299 a week) comes in at 3^rd place.  Folks, it’s not looking good.  A stirring reminder that we are entrenched in this pandemic.  Customer service, dish washer, Crew Deadhead (I don’t even know what that means) and Travel Specialist.   

Wine and Spirits Associate. 

Now that’s the spirit!   

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