NEW After hearing thousands of last words, this hospital chaplain has advice for the living
Hospital chaplain J.S. Park opens up about death, grief and hearing thousands of last words, and shares his advice for the living.
Canada's tight labour market is forcing many companies to offer regular COVID-19 testing over vaccine mandates, while others are reversing previously announced inoculation requirements even as Omicron variant cases rise.
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau's government adopted one of the strictest inoculation policies in the world for civil servants and has already put more than 1,000 workers on unpaid leave, with thousands more at risk.
Airlines, police forces, school boards and even Canada's Big Five banks have also pledged strict mandatory vaccine policies. But following through has proven less straightforward, especially as employers grapple with staffing shortages and workers demand exemptions.
Job vacancies in Canada have doubled so far this year, official data shows, and vaccine mandates can make filling those jobs harder, potentially putting upward pressure on wages. That could fuel inflation, already running at a near two-decade high.
"It's already difficult to find staff, let alone putting in a vaccine mandate. You'd cut out potentially another 20%" of potential workers, said Dan Kelly, chief executive of the Canadian Federation of Independent Business.
There are pitfalls to employing the unvaccinated. Companies run a higher risk of COVID-19 outbreaks and many vaccinated employees are uncomfortable working with those who have not had the jab, said industry groups and marketing experts.
At Luda Foods, a Montreal-based soup and sauce maker, president Robert Eiser said he has 14 open jobs, no vaccine mandate and no plans to restrict new hires to the vaccinated.
"I don't know that I want to reduce the (labour) pool, which is already quite low," said Eiser. "We need to attract people to meet the demand. If we don't, our competitors will."
Data released on Friday underpinned Canada's tight labour market, with a hefty 153,700 jobs added in November. It also showed a growing mismatch between available workers and unfilled jobs. And job postings are far above pre-pandemic levels.
Quebec backtracked on a vaccine mandate for health-care workers last month, saying they could not afford to lose thousands of unvaccinated staff. Ontario, which was also eyeing a mandate, said it would not go ahead.
TD Bank and Bank of Montreal have both softened their vaccine policy to allow regular testing for workers who missed their Oct. 31 inoculation deadline.
In Canada, 86% of adults are fully inoculated, though that drops under 80% among 18-40 year olds. At least 15 cases of the new Omicron variant in Canada have been reported in the past week.
John Cappelli, vice president of onsite managed services in Canada for global recruitment firm Adecco, said half of his clients are mandating vaccines with the other half allowing regular testing for the unvaccinated.
But he expects the Omicron variant will prompt more workplaces to get strict on vaccination, even as they grapple with the tightest job market he's seen in his 25-year career.
"We are now starting to see our first workplace (COVID-19) cases in five months," he said.
The number of Canadian job postings on search website Indeed mentioning vaccine requirements has quadrupled since August.
In the hard-hit manufacturing sector, where 77% of firms say their top concern is attracting and retaining workers, vaccine mandates are more rare.
Dennis Darby, CEO of Canadian Manufacturers and Exporters, said most of Canada's factories have operated safely throughout the pandemic. While CME encourages vaccination, "some companies are still using rapid testing if somebody doesn't want to get vaccinated," he added.
But companies risk a hit to their reputation if they are overt in efforts to tap into the unvaccinated as a labor pool, said Wojtek Dabrowski, managing partner at Provident Communications.
"If you go out and say, 'We are intentionally seeking to hire unvaccinated people,' many customers are equating that with you being anti-science and anti-safety," said Dabrowski.
Hospital chaplain J.S. Park opens up about death, grief and hearing thousands of last words, and shares his advice for the living.
More money will land in the pockets of some Canadian families on Friday for the latest Canada Child Benefit installment.
An apparent Israeli drone attack on Iran saw troops fire air defences at a major air base and a nuclear site early Friday morning near the central city of Isfahan, an assault coming in retaliation for Tehran's unprecedented drone-and-missile assault on the country.
American millionaire Jonathan Lehrer, one of two men charged in the killings of a Canadian couple in Dominica, has been denied bail.
Canadian banks that refuse to identify the carbon rebate by name when doing direct deposits are forcing the government to change the law to make them do it, says Environment Minister Steven Guilbeault.
A woman who recently moved to Canada from India was searching for a job when she got caught in an online job scam and lost $15,000.
Prince Harry, the son of King Charles III and fifth in line to the British throne, has formally confirmed he is now a U.S. resident.
Colin Jost, who co-anchors Saturday Night Live's 'Weekend Update,' revealed who he thinks is one of the best hosts on the show.
Nearly half of China's major cities are suffering 'moderate to severe' levels of subsidence, putting millions at risk of flooding especially as sea levels rise.
Kevin the cat has been reunited with his family after enduring a harrowing three-day ordeal while lost at Toronto Pearson International Airport earlier this week.
Molly Knight, a grade four student in Nova Scotia, noticed her school library did not have many books on female athletes, so she started her own book drive in hopes of changing that.
Almost 7,000 bars of pure gold were stolen from Pearson International Airport exactly one year ago during an elaborate heist, but so far only a tiny fraction of that stolen loot has been found.
When Les Robertson was walking home from the gym in North Vancouver's Lower Lonsdale neighbourhood three weeks ago, he did a double take. Standing near a burrow it had dug in a vacant lot near East 1st Street and St. Georges Avenue was a yellow-bellied marmot.
A moulting seal who was relocated after drawing daily crowds of onlookers in Greater Victoria has made a surprise return, after what officials described as an 'astonishing' six-day journey.
Just steps from Parliament Hill is a barber shop that for the last 100 years has catered to everyone from prime ministers to tourists.
A high score on a Foo Fighters pinball machine has Edmonton player Dave Formenti on a high.
A compound used to treat sour gas that's been linked to fertility issues in cattle has been found throughout groundwater in the Prairies, according to a new study.
While many people choose to keep their medical appointments private, four longtime friends decided to undergo vasectomies as a group in B.C.'s Lower Mainland.