Williams Lake suffering through labour shortage due to wildfires
KAMLOOPS — Some fairly serious labour pains are being felt in Williams Lake following last summer’s devastating wildfires.
The fires forced the evacuation of the entire town in July for weeks and according to Mayor Walt Cobb, a recent labour survey conducted by the local chamber of commerce reveals a lot of people haven’t returned home yet.
“Aparently a number of people have not come back,” he says. “Now, those are people that didn’t have homes here, they were probably renting, they were doing different things. But yes, they figure there could up be up to possibly 1,000 people. I don’t know if it’s that high or not, that sounds high. But that would be eight to 12 per cent of our population.”
He says the shortage has affected mainly the service sector, where Walmart for example is short 50 employees. But Cobb says even some of the mills in town – which pay far higher than minimum wage – are facing a bit of a pinch.