In the best of times, finding enough workers is an issue that Maritime seafood producers deal with on a regular basis.
Add COVID-19 to the mix and the loss of hundreds of temporary foreign workers and it’s turned into a very significant problem, says Jerry Gavin, executive director of the P.E.I. Processors Association.
“Our number one issue is labour,” said Gavin. “We started the season down about 30 per cent of the workforce. It’s still not much better. We’re still down 25 per cent.”
Temporary foreign workers usually account for close to 40 per cent of the labour force in P.E.I.’s processing plants, said Gavin, but this year, quite a few of them couldn’t get out of their home countries because of COVID-19 restrictions.
“These temporary foreign workers are the regulars who come every year. The temporary foreign workers that didn’t arrive are the experienced workers. It’s very hard to replace them. If you lose 200 experienced workers and replace them with 200 inexperienced workers, you can’t expect the same type of productivity.”
Making it even more challenging is the New Brunswick situation where “their plants are worse off then ours,” said Gavin, reportedly only operating at 35 to 50 per cent capacity prior to the ban on temporary foreign workers being lifted.
With 37 per cent of P.E.I spring lobsters exported to New Brunswick and Nova Scotia for processing, because of the labour shortage issue, “we couldn’t process all the lobsters that could have been harvested,” said Gavin, forcing some P.E.I. ports to impose catch limits in order to be able to manage the supply.
Gavin said the association just launched, through WorkPEI, an integrated website solely focused on the seafood processing job opportunities in the province and are “getting a bit of interest” and “positive feedback. We’re doing everything in our power to encourage folks to come to work in the seafood processing plants,” he said.
In Nova Scotia, all plants are experiencing challenges when it comes to having the required number of employees with the necessary skill sets available at the appropriate time in the season, said Leo Muise, executive director of the Nova Scotia Seafood Alliance.
“To date, finding workers has been difficult but manageable compared with other provinces,” said Muise.
“The challenge of bringing in temporary foreign workers and in some cases competing with the federal CERB (Canada Emergency Response Benefit) has reduced the overall work force in many businesses. Students, those laid off from other sectors and individuals wanting to help can fill a short-term critical need, but never without added cost to the business. Each new employee requires a minimal level of training and experience before achieving reasonable productivity. As an industry, we have tried to respond to the challenge by offering enhanced wage rates and benefits, and by introducing additional technology, protective equipment and in some cases enhanced automation. This group of responses has quickly become the new normal.”
The need to provide everyone with a safe working environment has required massive changes to the structure of most shore-based facilities, said Muise.
“The introduction of social distancing to the extent possible as well as the mandatory use of additional personal protective equipment are two key industry responses to the pandemic.”
Lisa Fitzgerald, executive director of the Nova Scotia Fisheries Sector Council, the key fisheries human resource and training organization in the province, said COVID-19 has created some new challenges to the ever-growing labour shortage issue.
“We have been working closely with industry to help support them through these challenging times,” said Fitzgerald.
Her organization has been creating a number of resources to help support the industry, including the development of the document Safety Practices for Seafood Processing, supporting assessment of operations and implementation of COVID-19 protocols, and launching a website (https://www.nsfsc.ca/covid-19/) which is “one-stop shopping for all COVID-19 resources for the industry,” said Fitzgerald.
“As businesses continue to operate during these challenging times, they need to be aware of what supports are out there, what are specific to the sector and how do they work. We are happy to provide this tool for industry and hope that it eases the burden of sifting through various websites to gain the information they need.”
