Worker Dearth in a Season of Plenty
Incredible. Prince Edward Island, with a population of 138,000, Canada's sweetest and wee-est province has an unemployment rate of 10.1%, well above the national average of 6.1%, according to Statistics Canada's Labour Force Survey. Well, what can you do when there are too few jobs, when such a lovely land mass of an island is so dependent on tourism and potatoes? We does the best with what we got, right? Mebbe.
Fact is, the peak Atlantic lobster season is upon us - or them. And a seafood processing plant on the eastern tip of Prince Edward Island is so desperate for workers that they've given up trying to entice the locals to join their efforts for industry-and-recompense. Jack MacAndrew, spokesman for Ocean Choice International claims the company faces self-defeating hurdles attempting to recruit locally for jobs that pay $9.45 an hour.
Ocean Choice took the desperate option of bringing over thirty workers from Russia last year under a programme that entitled the workers to remain for a maximum ten-month working period. They play to reprise that scheme once again this year. And for that matter, as long as it appears necessary that they do so in the requirement to keep the plant a going concern. This year they're anticipating the arrival of 65 eager Russian workers on temporary work visas.
"Spring is the big season. If you're short staffed, it means you work the people you have 10, 12, 14 hours a day," said Mr. MacAndrew. "There was one person who worked 100 hours last week. We cannot keep working people like that." Well, guess not. But Ocean Choice is 80 workers short of their need and as a result running at 20% under capacity.
The 400 locally engaged employees who work ten months out of a year, work marathon shifts at a pace that cannot be sustained without worker burn-out and ultimately damage to the production capacity of the plant. Which won't, in the end, auger well for its remaining situated in a locality that cannot supply its required labour force.
What a conundrum...high unemployment rate...low worker turn-out. Ocean Choice is planning to set up a bus service from Charlottetown, an hour-and-a half drive away, in hopes of drawing local workers who won't foot the gas bill. Overwork and exhaustion in the regular workforce continues to drive productivity on a downward spiral.
And it's not just PEI, facing this problem of worker shortage in geographic areas of high unemployment. It would appear that New Brunswick trucking firms are resorting, out of desperation, to bringing in drivers from Mexico and Eastern Europe. And there are also retail jobs anxious for workers, along with the seasonal tourism industry also casting about for workers.
In Ontario and British Columbia the local populations aren't dreadfully interested in back-breaking agricultural jobs, and there too workers are being brought in to take up the huge slack, coming from international sources and travelling improbable distances to work at jobs Canadians consider too menial, too arduous, too ill-paid. The difference in those provinces being that the work force is otherwise legitimately engaged for the most part.
In the Atlantic provinces this little conundrum has a ready explanation. According to Charles Cirtwill, president of the Atlantic Institute for Market Studies, a Halifax-based think tank, "We've got a structure between EI (employment insurance; more generous down east where seasonal employment is the norm - than elsewhere in Canada) and welfare that makes it very difficult for people to move to accept these kinds of jobs, because of course it doesn't pay to do so.
"They actually lose money if they take employment. You're seeing all these factors pile up and that's why you see this plant in PEI have such a problem getting people to work the shop floor." This problem is slated to become exacerbated in the future with a low birth rate, an exodus of young people to higher-paying job opportunities out west, and the continuation of low incentives as long as EI is there to pick up the slack.
And here you thought that basic human dignity required that people labour for the wherewithal of a decent existence. Canada has constructed a genuine charitable outlook on providing for those unfortunates in her population whose circumstances lead them to feel unwanted, unloved, unemployed and unused.
The salve of receiving regular lucre in honour of sitting in place obviously eases the pain of life's unfair little rejections.
Fact is, the peak Atlantic lobster season is upon us - or them. And a seafood processing plant on the eastern tip of Prince Edward Island is so desperate for workers that they've given up trying to entice the locals to join their efforts for industry-and-recompense. Jack MacAndrew, spokesman for Ocean Choice International claims the company faces self-defeating hurdles attempting to recruit locally for jobs that pay $9.45 an hour.
Ocean Choice took the desperate option of bringing over thirty workers from Russia last year under a programme that entitled the workers to remain for a maximum ten-month working period. They play to reprise that scheme once again this year. And for that matter, as long as it appears necessary that they do so in the requirement to keep the plant a going concern. This year they're anticipating the arrival of 65 eager Russian workers on temporary work visas.
"Spring is the big season. If you're short staffed, it means you work the people you have 10, 12, 14 hours a day," said Mr. MacAndrew. "There was one person who worked 100 hours last week. We cannot keep working people like that." Well, guess not. But Ocean Choice is 80 workers short of their need and as a result running at 20% under capacity.
The 400 locally engaged employees who work ten months out of a year, work marathon shifts at a pace that cannot be sustained without worker burn-out and ultimately damage to the production capacity of the plant. Which won't, in the end, auger well for its remaining situated in a locality that cannot supply its required labour force.
What a conundrum...high unemployment rate...low worker turn-out. Ocean Choice is planning to set up a bus service from Charlottetown, an hour-and-a half drive away, in hopes of drawing local workers who won't foot the gas bill. Overwork and exhaustion in the regular workforce continues to drive productivity on a downward spiral.
And it's not just PEI, facing this problem of worker shortage in geographic areas of high unemployment. It would appear that New Brunswick trucking firms are resorting, out of desperation, to bringing in drivers from Mexico and Eastern Europe. And there are also retail jobs anxious for workers, along with the seasonal tourism industry also casting about for workers.
In Ontario and British Columbia the local populations aren't dreadfully interested in back-breaking agricultural jobs, and there too workers are being brought in to take up the huge slack, coming from international sources and travelling improbable distances to work at jobs Canadians consider too menial, too arduous, too ill-paid. The difference in those provinces being that the work force is otherwise legitimately engaged for the most part.
In the Atlantic provinces this little conundrum has a ready explanation. According to Charles Cirtwill, president of the Atlantic Institute for Market Studies, a Halifax-based think tank, "We've got a structure between EI (employment insurance; more generous down east where seasonal employment is the norm - than elsewhere in Canada) and welfare that makes it very difficult for people to move to accept these kinds of jobs, because of course it doesn't pay to do so.
"They actually lose money if they take employment. You're seeing all these factors pile up and that's why you see this plant in PEI have such a problem getting people to work the shop floor." This problem is slated to become exacerbated in the future with a low birth rate, an exodus of young people to higher-paying job opportunities out west, and the continuation of low incentives as long as EI is there to pick up the slack.
And here you thought that basic human dignity required that people labour for the wherewithal of a decent existence. Canada has constructed a genuine charitable outlook on providing for those unfortunates in her population whose circumstances lead them to feel unwanted, unloved, unemployed and unused.
The salve of receiving regular lucre in honour of sitting in place obviously eases the pain of life's unfair little rejections.
Labels: Canada, Politics of Convenience
posted by Pieface | 5:11 PM
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