The search never ends for people to work in the agriculture industry.
A career fair at the University of Lethbridge recently drew a wide array of companies seeking employee talent.
Twenty-five percent of the 80 booths at the fair were related to agriculture, many of them national or multinational companies seeking summer students for seed, agronomy and sales projects in southern Alberta.
However, full-time jobs were also available and university students were paying attention, as were those laid off in other sectors.
Seona Noseworthy of Crop Protection Services said the downturn in Alberta’s oil and gas industry is generating more interest in agriculture jobs.
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“Their loss is our gain,” she said while speaking to visitors at the CPS booth.
Joshua Spies, a field biologist with Syngenta, said he has noticed the same thing.
“I’ve definitely seen people looking for careers for sure, in the agriculture industry, going back to the farm and things like that,” he said.
“Agriculture’s been picking up the past couple of years so there’s been a lot of interest in agriculture, as you can tell by the booths here.”
Interest, yes, but finding people to fill all the jobs, especially those involving on-farm labour, remains a challenge.
Statistics Canada’s job vacancy and wage survey shows the general farm worker category has one of the highest vacancy rates within agriculture, as well as compared to other occupations such as health, trades and natural resources.
“The agricultural labour market is shrinking annually and we are always looking for great talent,” said Connie Harder of AgCall Human Resources, which specializes in finding candidates for agricultural jobs.
“There’s an overwhelming de-mand for people who are either educated in agriculture, experienced in agriculture or come from family farms.”
Harder said she is aware of problems finding workers for primary agriculture but has found much depends on the candidate’s willingness to move and the location of the job.
“A lot of times, agriculture companies at the grassroots, like feedlots and on-farm people, it depends on where they are. Location is huge. Often it is difficult to find somebody who wants to work in the middle of nowhere. People who farm kind of on the outskirts of major centres often have an easier time.”
Representatives from Monsanto, CNH, Richardson, Bayer Crop-Science and Dupont Pioneer said they’ve had good luck recruiting summer workers, some of whom later end up in full-time positions.
Jessica Siemens, a sales agronomist from Richardson, graduated from the U of L last year with a biology degree and now has a full-time position with the company at its Stirling, Alta., location.
“The local educational institutions such as the university here, as well as the college, have been good places for us to look,” said Nathan Koppert of Dupont Pioneer.
“But there’s always the challenge, once you get an application, to make the right choice and to select the right candidate for a long-term role.”
Contact barb.glen@producer.com
