Quebec’s Public Pools Anticipate Return to Normal by 2023, Despite Lifeguard Shortage

According to a survey conducted by the ARAQ at the end of last May, the recruitment of lifeguards went well this spring.

“When the pandemic returned, when we started activities, several pools were able to offer around 60% of the activities they had pre-pandemic. So it was a reduction that was really significant, and it was not caused by a lack of public interest. It was really because there was a lack of personnel,” says Éric Hervieux, president of the ARAQ.

Now, on average, swimming pools offer 80% to 90% of their pre-pandemic services, estimates Mr. Hervieux.

“We, our forecast, is that we will end the year 2023 with a return to normal,” he says, as the situation has improved this spring.

“For spring, 64% of aquatic managers told us they had enough staff. Then, when we looked for the summer, already on that date (at the end of May), there were 82% of aquatic managers who had enough employees for the summer season,” recalls Mr. Hervieux.

These data include the recruitment of instructors for swimming lessons, and lifeguards. Mr. Hervieux nuances that the portrait can vary from one municipality to another, each having different needs in terms of personnel.

The Lifesaving Society of Quebec has been claiming since the start of the pandemic, when lifeguard training was suspended in the spring of 2020, that the impact of the shortage of lifeguards would be felt “for a few years”, underlines Raynald Hawkins, CEO of the Lifesaving Society.

However, Hawkins says he is encouraged by the free lifeguard training program introduced last fall.

“Since last September, there has been an increase in training of around 50 to 60% depending on certification levels,” says Mr. Hawkins.

However, it remains to be seen whether all of the people who embark on this training will actually work as lifeguards. Summer jobs are still in competition with each other, says the director of the Lifesaving Society.

“The shortage of labor that we see in the broad sense, necessarily, there is also an impact among the public baths”, underlines Mr. Hawkins.

Pool employers must also deal with a new phenomenon: they must hire more lifeguards for the same number of hours of supervision to be filled. Employees now want to work fewer hours, and not necessarily on weekends or evenings.

As for the regions where the shortage of lifeguards is most felt, Mauricie was problematic last year, which does not seem to be the case this summer, according to Mr. Hawkins.

In Saguenay–Lac-Saint-Jean, “I was told that this year it was perhaps a little more difficult,” declared Raynald Hawkins.

This dispatch was produced with financial assistance from the Meta Exchange and The Canadian Press for News.