Alberta Pork’s pilot program will help producers understand changes to the Temporary Foreign Workers Program
Alberta Pork is offering to help producers work through the labyrinth of paperwork required to hire foreign workers.
The organization launched a one year pilot program Oct. 1 that will cover up to one-third of the cost of services to assist with the foreign worker process.
“There have been a lot of changes in the last few years, and there has been a lot of elements that you need to manage and keep going,” immigration consultant Martine Varekamp-Bos told Alberta Pork’s meeting in Calgary Nov. 5..
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“The ball can drop and you have to start all over again.”
Many of the changes introduced last year were in response to alleged abuses over the Temporary Foreign Worker Program. The new approach is to hire Canadians first, but the agriculture industry continues to struggle hiring local people.
Service Canada recognizes that agriculture has a critical need, but the process is not easy.
“The office has quite a lot of discretion in what they can do, and I think they don’t always understand the programs as well as the government originally intended,” Varekamp-Bos said.
One thousand positions cannot be filled in Canada, even with the seven percent national unemployment rate, said Mark Chambers, chair of the Canadian Agriculture and Agri-food Workforce Action Plan.
He chairs the policy and programs group to identify constraints and issues with the Temporary Foreign Workers Program and determine what changes could be recommended to improve access to that program.
“Agriculture was exempt from a lot of changes, which was a good thing, but it did not alleviate the issues we already had with the program that we weren’t getting fixed,” he told a recent hog technology workshop in Red Deer Oct. 31.
Permanent workers are needed on farms, feed mills and processing plants.
The federal government offers an express entry program to bring in high skilled workers. Candidates could eventually become permanent residents.
“It is for high skilled occupations, not high demand occupations,” he said. “The meat industry has a lot of high demand occupations.”
Bringing in workers was less onerous before 2009. Now it is a tangle of red tape and is not well understood by those running the program or those who wish to apply for foreign labour.
“It is like walking in a minefield,” he said. “It is forever changing and becoming very complex.”
Other countries are also looking for farm workers so the competition for good staff is ongoing, said Marvin Salomons, a private consultant working with Alberta Pork.
“Labour is in short supply in the global marketplace and other countries are recruiting workers as well,” he said.
“Labour mobility is at record levels, and we have to ask the question whether Canada can even meet our current labour needs and our future labour needs.”
A national commodities list was written last year that includes a national agriculture stream related to primary agriculture for those looking to hire. It is broken down into lower and higher skilled categories, and each commodity has its own wage rates.
The hog wage rate is a minimum of $11.20 per hour for a low skills job and $14.90 for high skills. However, that is far below other wages, according to government statistics.
For example, the median wage varies from $25 per hour in Alberta to $17.48 in Prince Edward Island.
The new rules also cover benefits such as housing and the amount of rent a foreign worker pays. The benefit is not extended to domestic workers and could cause conflict.
Recruiting people takes finesse, and employers need to keep up to date with the latest immigration rules.
Potential workers need to know what kind of farm it is, its location and benefits. A video of the farm and pictures of the accommodations are useful and can relieve stress for new workers and hopefully encourage them to stay, said Varekamp-Bos.
“Managing that relationship is vital to the success of this worker wanting to stay with you long term,” she said.
Varekamp-Bos also advised employers to maintain files on each worker, including information such as the work permit, passport, employee contract, job description, time sheets, payroll and guarantees of an abuse free workplace.
