Alberta announces 18 target occupations for tourism and hotel talent stream

List of target occupations for Alberta’s tourism talent selection project announced

The Alberta Provincial Nominee Office will open a new provincial nomination program for practitioners in the tourism and hospitality industry on March 1 to solve the current shortage of manpower in the industry.

According to an announcement from the Alberta Ministry of Immigration and Multiculturalism, the new provincial nominee program will support 18 target occupations, as follows:

• Program leaders and instructors in recreation, sport and fitness. The median wage, according to the Statistics Canada Job Bank, is $19.23.
• Restaurant and food service managers. Median wage $26.44. 
• Accommodation service managers. Median wage $34.67. 
• Food service supervisors. Median wage $18. 
• Chefs. Median wage $19. 
• Cooks. Median wage $17.
• Maitres d’hotel and hosts/hostesses. Median wage $15. 
• Bartenders. Median wage $17.50. 
• Hotel front desk clerks. Median wage $17. 
• Tour and travel guides. Median wage $18. 
• Outdoor sport and recreational guides. Median wage $18.50. 
• Food and beverage servers. Median wage $17.
• Food counter attendants, kitchen helpers and related support occupations. Median wage $15.
• Support occupations in accommodation, travel and facilities setup services. Median wage $17. 
• Light duty cleaners. Median wage $18.
• Specialized cleaners. Median wage $18.
• Janitors, caretakers and heavy-duty cleaners. Median wage $21.
• Dry cleaning, laundry and related occupations. Median wage $16.50.

The above positions cover talents at all levels from chefs, tour guides, laundry workers to hotel managers. It can be seen that the threshold for many positions is not high. Applicants for the new category only need to have six months of work experience and a full-time job offer in the above 18 positions, which also reflects the current shortage of people in the tourism industry in Alberta.

Mohamed Yassin, the Minister of Immigration and Multiculturalism of the Province of Alberta, said in an interview that 9,750 candidates will receive provincial nominations in Alberta in 2023. He expects nominations for new tourist hotel projects to account for about 8 per cent to 10 per cent of the province’s total nominations this year.

Alberta has been seeking to transition away from an industrial economy dependent on oil, making tourism a good target.
Alberta is home to two world-class attractions, the picturesque Banff and Jasper National Parks, as well as the famous tourist city of Calgary. Tourism has become a new pillar industry for the province’s economic development.

In 2022, tourism spending in Alberta reached a record $10.7 billion, an increase of $600 million from 2019.

Alberta plans to double the size of its tourism economy to $25 billion over the next 10 years. For a long time to come, Alberta will have continued and large demand for talents in the tourism and hotel industry.

Mondo of the Canadian Tourism Industry Human Resources Association said that the entire Canadian tourism industry is facing a shortage of manpower. If other provinces see the success of Alberta, they may launch similar programs to recruit talents in the tourism and hotel industry.

At the same time as announcing the opening of the new provincial nomination program, the Alberta Provincial Nominee Office announced that it would suspend the acceptance of applications under the Alberta Opportunity Stream.

The official reason is that it is currently in order to solve the current problem of excessive backlog of applications and to prioritize quotas for talents in the medical care, technology, construction, agriculture, tourism and hotel industries.

The above are all industries that are in urgent need and have a huge human resource gap in Alberta. This reflects a shift in immigration trends in Alberta and Canada as a whole, which is more focused on attracting talent who can meet the needs of economic development.
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