Focus on local workers | Changes will mean more competition for labourers, increasing costs
The federal government’s decision to tighten rules governing use of temporary foreign workers in Canada will have a “very significant” impact on many farmers, says a new report.
The government published new rules in late summer that will require employers who bring in foreign workers through the Temporary Foreign Worker Program to pay higher fees and face a higher bar in proving that they are not replacing Canadians willing to work.
Although the major programs used by farmers to hire foreign temporary workers are not affected, a report from the George Morris Centre in Guelph, Ont., said the industry will feel the pinch.
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“It would be wrong to suppose that the agri-food sector will be left unaffected,” said the report, written by senior research associate Al Mussell.
“The changes can be expected to make it tougher to fill certain types of positions.”
The agri-food sector employed almost 40,000 temporary foreign workers last year, which is more than 13 percent higher than in 2010.
The majority were in categories exempted by the government from the changes, which are aimed at meeting criticisms that employers are using lower-paid foreign workers to cut costs and bypass unemployed Canadians who have higher job pay and work condition expectations.
“Despite the exemptions, I do think that in some sectors these changes will have a very significant impact on farmer ability to attract and retain workers,” Mussell said in an interview.
“This is particularly true in sectors where the work is difficult or repetitive.”
He said Ontario and Alberta will be most affected.
The need to increase efforts to find local workers will mean producers are competing with other sectors, raising costs and the need to train local workers without farm equipment skills in a highly mechanized business.
Mussell said the new rules are a signal that finding a workforce willing to meet agriculture’s needs will become more difficult and costly.
“The new constraints placed on access to foreign workers provide a signal that the sector will need to continuously adapt in order to compete for talented people with other economic sectors and across regions to succeed in its operations,” he wrote.
Farmers will have to consider both the prospect of higher wage bills and also the need to invest in new equipment that requires higher worker skill levels but also improve productivity.
He said the days of farmers depending for a seasonal workforce on under-employed or unemployed locals with some knowledge of farming are over.
“It is no longer the case that the sector can readily depend on locally bound supplies of low-cost workers requiring little training and having few employment opportunities,” he wrote.
Foreign workers have filled the gap, but political sensitivities are making that workforce source less reliable.
