It appears the days of massive fall job fairs could be over in Whistler, as some large local employers are shifting their recruitment efforts and seeing more equilibrium in staffing levels from summer to winter.

While Whistler Blackcomb and the Gibbons Hospitality Group, which owns Buffalo Bill’s, the Longhorn and Tapley’s, are planning smaller-scale job fairs in early November, the Chamber of Commerce is not likely to bring its job fair back and the Fairmont Chateau Whistler will only need about 50 extra employees for winter.

Gone are the days of Whistler Blackcomb’s (WB) huge fall job fairs, when up to 1,500 people would be interviewed and hired on the spot in just a few days, said Joel Chevalier, WB’s director of employee experience.

By early November, when WB is planning to hold its annual job fair, only about 200 part- and full-time positions will still remain unfilled for the coming winter season, he said.

“As we get into the end of September, we’re 85 per cent full,” Chevalier said.

When fewer people started showing up for the big fall job fair a few years ago, WB changed its focus to include more overseas recruiting. In recent years, managers have travelled to Australia, New Zealand and beyond to bring a mix of people to work on Whistler’s mountains for a winter or more.

While Australia has long been a source for WB workers, a conscious decision was made in the past few years to diversify new recruits, Chevalier said. The Czech Republic, Spain, Poland, South Africa and other countries are now regular stops on overseas recruitment trips. The program has been “extremely successful,” he added.

WB managers are currently in Quebec and Ontario for the domestic hiring push, with the goal to have Canadians make up about 40 per cent of WB’s winter staff, Chevalier said. Local hiring includes a program with the Lil’wat and Squamish First Nations, and WB is talking with Whistler’s Mature Action Committee about possible part-time or casual opportunities for local seniors, he said.

After hiring fewer seasonal workers going into last winter, which included the 2010 Winter Olympics and was expected to be quieter than usual on the mountains, WB is gearing up to be back at normal staffing levels for winter 2010-’11, Chevalier said. About 3,600 people will be working for WB this winter, with 2,100 people who are year-round employees or returning seasonal staff, and about 1,500 new hires.

“We have an expectation it’s going to be a great season,” Chevalier said. “We’re confident to go into the coming winter with 3,600 staff.”

WB has seen a growing number of summer workers in recent years because of increasing popularity of the bike park, increased sightseeing traffic and the Peak 2 Peak Gondola. Chevalier said instead of the approximately 800 summer staff members in the past, this year about 1,250 people have been with WB for the summer.

Joey Gibbons, president of Gibbons Hospitality Group, said summer staffing levels have been on the rise at Tapley’s, the Longhorn and Buffalo Bill’s over the past three or four years. With Whistler becoming more of a four-season resort, the Gibbons group is almost constantly advertising job openings and winter now sees only about 10 per cent more workers than summer, he said.

The Gibbons group’s fall hiring fair will simply “top up” summer staffing levels, he said. A trend Gibbons has been noticing is more people coming to Whistler in advance of the summer season and sticking around for winter. In the past, the opposite was common.

Recent summers have been just as busy as winter at the Fairmont Chateau Whistler, said General Manager Roger Soane. Instead of hiring an extra 100 or 150 people in November like past winters, about 50 extra workers will be needed for winter 2010-’11, he said.

And with more turnover than usual after the Games, which was expected, most of those 50 jobs will be available because of “natural attrition,” Soane said.

The Chateau has also been sourcing fewer employees through foreign worker programs over the past two years, Soane said, because many foreign workers stayed on two-year contracts.

He said he’s confident the economy will continue to improve, and the coming winter will be more consistently busy than last year’s Olympic winter.

“We’re expecting to have a very good winter,” he said.

The Whistler Chamber of Commerce began surveying its members this week about recruitment needs for the coming winter, Fiona Famulak, Chamber president, wrote in an email to The Question.

“Once we understand their needs, we’ll decide how best to provide support,” she wrote.

The chamber didn’t hold its traditional job fair last fall because members said they needed “flexibility in recruitment options” leading up to the Games. Instead, the chamber offered enhanced online recruitment tools and helped point employers to various pools of potential employees, she said.

“I anticipate that will also happen this year,” Famulak wrote.