Canadian Meat Council puts out urgent call for skilled labour

News

Canadian Meat Council puts out urgent call for skilled labour

The CMC says a nation-wide shortage of butchers, meat cutters and labourers threatens Canadian producers, meat packers, processors, competitiveness and rural communities

January 7, 2015 

Ottawa – A shortage of butchers, meat cutters and labourers in Canada is curtailing the prospects of the livestock and meat sector and is restricting the economies of rural municipalities, says the Canadian Meat Council (CMC).

The CMC says the issue is urgent and adds that Canada’s immigration program alsofails to address the need for special or semi-skilled workers.

Immigration policies a huge factor

In a statement issued in January, the CMC says Canada requires an immigration program that permits access to foreign workers who have specialized knowledge and skills.

The CMC adds that the meat industry has asked the government that butchers and meat cutters be eligible immediately for inclusion in Canada’s new Express Entry program.

In recent years, says the CMC, the industry has witnessed a marked decline in the proportion of Canadians willing to work in the industry as well as a decision by the federal government to select higher-skilled immigrants.

The government’s policy decision has severely restricted access not only to candidates for starting positions as labourers, but also to new immigrants who might possess high-demand special skills such as those of butchers and meat-cutters. On top of that, there’s an aging workforce in Canada.

All these factors have led to a decrease in the availability of both Canadians and new immigrants who are able and willing to work in the industry.

Good jobs

And it’s not a bad industry to work in. In Canada it’s highly unionized. Rates of pay have been increasing faster than inflation, and the jobs often come with employer sponsored employee benefits.

To help attract more potential employees, the industry has also asked the government to facilitate awareness of work opportunities through government databases as well as direct communication with those who are actively seeking employment.

The CMC says the meat industry alone is advertising for 1,000 workers who are required urgently to staff currently vacant work stations. One employer may offer as many as 250 positions.

The positions offered in the meat industry are all permanent. But considering the shortage of applicants and the few immigrants there are with butcher and meat-cutter knowledge and skills, the meat industry has had to supplement there domestic recruitment initiatives with workers accessed through the Temporary Foreign Worker Program (TFWP).

Effects on industry

But restrictions on access to labour are having a toll on employers. For instance, the meat industry has experienced:

• an inability to staff work stations that are currently empty; • an inability to back-fill positions that become vacant as work permits for temporary foreign workers expire;
• an inability to recruit sufficient workers to fill vacancies that arise as the result of natural worker turnover; and
• an inability to envisage additional shifts, new value-added products, or enhanced export opportunities.

The results? Canadian meat packers and processors are:

• reducing or curtailing the production of value- added items;
• diverting specialty meats to lower value rendering rather than harvesting them for export;
• forfeiting existing and new export opportunities;
• decreasing profitability, competitiveness and business sustainability; and
• increasing the number of Canadian jobs that are being placed at risk.

As a consequence, livestock producers sell fewer animals at lower prices to Canadian meat packers and become more dependent upon export sales to U.S. meat processors.

But by exporting livestock rather than processing them in Canada, the industry is effectively transporting jobs and economic opportunity. Not to mention jeopardizing the competitiveness of the Canadian livestock and meat sector.

For more on the issue, click here.

Photos from FreeDigitalPhotos.net

The Source:http://www.foodincanada.com/food-business/canadian-meat-council-puts-urgent-call-skilled-labour-130409/

NEWS

Canada’s meat industry seeks to employ Syrian refugees

By Kelsey Johnson | Dec 2, 2015 2:33 pm | 1 comment | 

(AP Photo/Charlie Neibergall)

Canada’s meat industry says it wants to hire Syrian refugees, and is calling on the federal government to place newcomers in rural communities as part of the plan to help settle 25,000 refugees by March.

“We believe full-time, permanent jobs are the key to successful refugee settlement and integration into Canadian society,” Jim Laws, the executive director of the Canadian Meat Council, said Tuesday. “Our industry is committed to working with local organizations to facilitate settlement of refugees just as we do with the temporary foreign workers.”

Laws was speaking on a panel on the role private industry can play in helping to resettle refugees in Canada. The panel was part of the Forum on Welcoming Syrian Refugees to Canada organized by Governor General David Johnston and his wife, Sharon, at Rideau Hall in Ottawa.

The Canadian meat industry, Laws said, will seek out assistance such as appropriate language training, housing, schooling for refugees– insisting those resources are not limited to Canada’s urban communities.

Under the current plan, all Syrian refugees would arrive through Toronto and Montreal before being sent to 36 other communities where the government will set up ‘welcoming centres’ across the country. The majority of refugees are expected to be placed in urban centres.

The federal government said on its contracting website Wednesday that it wants air transportation for the refugees to begin December 10.

“We believe very strongly that federal and provincial governments should be doing everything possible to facilitate settlement of some of the refugees in smaller, rural cities and towns in Western Canada, Ontario, Quebec and Atlantic Canada, where their labour is most needed,” Laws said.

The offer to employ refugees comes as Canada’s meat industry is faced with a severe shortage of workers. There are 1,000 job openings in Canadian meat plants at any given time, Laws said – a crisis that risks undermining the country’s largest manufacturing industry.

“There just aren’t enough available Canadians who are willing to accept job offers for vacancies that are situated often in smaller, more distant and rural locations,” Laws stressed. This, despite the fact the majority of the jobs in the sector are unionized, well-paying jobs – whose pay grades are generally well about minimum wage.

The Canadian meat industry currently employs some 65,000 workers across the country. Many of those workers, Laws said Tuesday, were once refugees themselves, or are new Canadians of diverse heritage who now call rural Canada home.

“I’ve witnessed many a lunchroom and cafeteria in meat plants where the walls are plastered with the flags of dozens of different countries, honouring those who work there,” Laws said.

With files from Janice Dickson

The Source:http://ipolitics.ca/2015/12/02/canadas-meat-industry-seeks-to-employ-syrian-refugees/

Comment:

"Butchers and Canada Immigration’s Twilight Zone

The attached two articles speak eloquently to the parallel universe of Canadian immigration policy.

On the one hand there is no dispute:

•  That Canada does not train enough butchers. I’ve read government financed reports that Canadian schools generate 3 (three) master butchers a year.

• That the meat industry desperately needs qualified butchers

• That Canada’s immigration rules give priority  to butchers becoming immigrants under the Federal Skilled Trades Program

• That there are today hundreds, if not more, European butchers working illegally in Ontario

On the other hand, Canada immigration lives in a universe:

• That refuses to allow qualified European master butchers to legally  prepare pork chops  

Looks forward to unqualified Muslims working in pork slaughter houses"  

Richard Boraks, January 20 2016