The Human Resources and Training Coordinator with Manitoba Pork says as pork production within the province expands and current workers retire, the need for new employees will increase.
Last month the Manitoba government changes to the Manitoba Provincial Nominee Program intended to improve processing times for foreign workers and fast-track nominations.
Janice Goldsborough, the Human Resources and Training Coordinator with Manitoba Pork, says recruiting the numbers of workers needed within the pork industry has been increasingly challenging.
The number of job vacancies really varies. I know the Maple Leaf processing plant could easily run another shift if they had enough workers, which at the moment they don’t, but they’re looking at ways to be able to increase their production at the plant.
HyLife is also doing a major expansion on their plant in Neepawa. They’re going to be looking at needing at least another 165 workers just at that plant alone.
Then our independent producers around the province, again the number really changes so I can’t give you an exact number other than it’s a lot.
How is this expected to change moving forward? We’re going to see it continually increasing as our barns expand, or as new barns come on board as well as Maple Leaf and HyLife are always looking at ways to increase their production.
Factors that affect the job vacancies are things like age of the current workers. We’re going to be seeing a large number of people retiring. Across Canada, we’re going to be having about 175 thousand positions become available just within the agricultural industry over the next five to yen years.
~ Janice Goldsborough, Manitoba Pork
Goldsborough says, as more people retire and the need for more skilled workers increases, we’re going to see more of a demand for workers.
