MONTREAL -- After being laid off from her job as a flight attendant for Air Transat in April, Jennifer Yurchuk, who has 29 years of experience on the job, found work as a courier for FedEx while living off of her savings until her airline calls her back to work, if it ever does.
Many of those workers have spent years perfecting a highly specialized skill or climbing to the top of their union's seniority hierarchy, and now are wondering whether the best option for them is to jump ship altogether."I have to come up with something," said Diane Edwards, who was laid off from her flight attendant job at Sky Regional Airlines Inc. this year. "There's not a lot of jobs available right now, either. I might end up just taking whatever I can.
Edwards is one of the administrators of a Facebook page called "Aviation workers made redundant in Canada by the COVID-19 crisis." The group, which now has more than 13,000 members, is part support group, part organizing tool, and part jobs board, with people posting links from potential employers in case others are looking for work outside the industry.
To help its members during the pandemic, Air Canada's pilots union has hired a third-party firm to provide "professional development and temporary job transition assistance," said Blake Murphy, acting chair of the Air Canada Pilots Association. As a result of an agreement, the number of furloughed pilots was limited to 600, while the remaining 3,000 are on reduced pay, Murphy said.
An exodus of highly specialized workers to other sectors can create problems for overall demand in the economy, since those workers will not fully realize their earnings potential, Fanelli said.
Time to take a trade. No shortage of jobs there
All Canadian airlines are hanging on by a thread for the next 3 months as they have laid off 98% of employees . Canada is on the path of destroying the economy indefinitely
We are NOT all in this together.