Employers, job-seekers connect
Fish plants seeking replacements for retirees
With a new processing season just a little over a week away, staff from at least three fish plants were among the more than 20 employers in attendance April 19 at the western P.E.I. Job Fair. Cheryl Arsenault, Quality Control Manager for Acadian Supreme, said job-seekers were dropping by their booth and filling out applications.
A challenge, Arsenault noted, is to replace the longtime seasonal workers, those with 30 or more years of experience, who are retiring.
“We’re working on an attrition program right now, so, if we have someone in a position that’s critical to the company, we train people to replace them,” she said.
Arsenault said the plant employs around 220 at peak season. It operated at capacity last year.
“It’s getting harder to keep the workforce you need,” agreed David Dalton, a South Shore Seafoods co-owner. “As your older core staff retires, it’s hard to replace them with the same numbers.”
Looking around the job fair booths, Dalton noted there are several employers seeking workers and suggested there is not sufficient numbers locally to fill the jobs. He said the Temporary Foreign Worker program helps make up for the shortfall.
“They create jobs,” he said. “If I didn’t have the temporary foreign workers; if they cut that program down and said, you can’t have that next year, we would definitely shut down one of our plants; we have two.” Daphne Donahue of Bloomfield who has just completed fourth year of university, was making the rounds at the job fair and said there were some “interesting jobs” to consider. A summer job is very important for university students, she said, explaining not only do the wages help with university expenses, but students can now obtain Employment Insurance during the school year if they have enough weeks of work. She qualified for the benefits last year and said it was really helpful.
She suggested that possibility makes the summer employment that much more important. Bruce Craig of Craig Wood Products attended the fair seeking carpenter’s assistants for his woodworking business and general labourers for lumberyard and sawmill. Most of the people who visited his booth, he said, had carpentry experience.
Craig said he finds the school system is coming back around to promote the trades again.
“Years ago they told all the students they had to be computer experts, or they had to go to university to make a living,” he suggested. “Now there are people with university degrees who don’t have jobs.”
“I love what I do,” he said of his chosen career. “You come home at the end of the day. You may be tired, but you can see what you did at the end of the day in our field.”