As with many municipalities across North America, the City of Ottawa is experiencing shortages of lifeguards and swimming instructors. Despite this, staff have been able to sustain service offerings with minimal impacts over the course of the pandemic. Until recently, hiring projections indicated that we would have sufficient staff resources to meet all operating requirements for the summer 2022 season. Unfortunately, over the past week and a half, a significant number of staff hired for this summer have submitted resignations, , mostly to pursue employment opportunities in other fields. Consequently, the Department will need to reduce some service offerings by cancelling certain public swim times, reducing the swim capacities at public swim sessions, and cancelling approximately 50 learn-to-swim classes. At this time, over 5,000 programmed learn-to-swim classes will operate as scheduled this summer.
Clients who are enrolled in a registered swimming program and are affected by a cancellation will receive a phone call notification and offered an alternative class, where feasible. Notices of service impacts will be displayed at the affected facilities and posted on ottawa.ca on the individual facility pages under the schedules tab.
Staff understand this will come as a disappointment to affected clients and they are doing everything they can to continue to run as many programs as possible. Qualified supervisory staff have been assuming operational roles, including lifeguarding swims and teaching swimming lessons. This will continue in order to mitigate cancellations. When more staff become available, supplemental public swim sessions will be scheduled. We are currently offering swimming programs at 16 indoor pools, 9 outdoor pools and 3 beaches. Additionally, we have 55 wading pools and 145 splash pads in operation. We currently have sufficient staff to operate the wading pool program at full capacity and continue to monitor staffing levels.
Throughout the pandemic, Recreation, Cultural and Facility Services continued to run lifesaving, lifeguarding and leadership courses to support the viability of our workforce. We were leaders in training new lifeguards through this period and all certification courses were at full capacity with waitlists. Additional courses were added as required. Despite the high enrollment in lifeguard certification courses, many lifeguards are seeking employment elsewhere, often in other fields.
Staff are actively continuing efforts to recruit, hire and train staff. . They invite any interested candidates to visit ottawa.ca/recjobs and submit their interest in joining our Aquatic team as soon as possible.
