They’re hiring
Fish plants need workers but COVID EI may be keeping them at home
It's impossible to miss the message on the large billboard at the corner of Freshwater Road and Crosbie Road in St. John's.
Quin-sea Fisheries Ltd. in Old Perlican wants workers.
In addition to competitive wages, the company offers hot food on site and daily transport to and from St. John's — 60 kilometres away.
Quin-sea, owned by Royal Greenland, is not the only seafood producer looking for workers.
Barry Group, another large processor, is also seeking workers. It has openings at its plant in Port de Grave.
Officials from Quin-sea and the Barry Group could not be reached for comment.
When it comes to wages, though, most of the seafood companies offer decent pay.
About half of the processing plants in the province are unionized.
If you can get a job on the processing lines at one of those processing lines, you can earn around $18-19 per hour, according to the Fish Food and Allied Workers' union (Ffaw-unifor).
A representative of the union added that skilled trades people in those unionized plants earn an average of $26 per hour.
The union doesn't have detailed information on the wages offered in non-union plants, but says it runs the gamut from minimum wage to slightly below union rates.
During the busy crab fishing season, there's full-time, steady work available at most of them.
Demographics and outmigration, especially in remote, rural areas, has been a growing challenge for seafood companies trying to find staff.
However, there's another factor at play this season — enhanced Employment Insurance.
When the pandemic put people out of work last year in a lot of seasonal industries, the federal government amended the EI rules to allow people to qualify for benefits after working just 120 hours. Normally, the minimum requirement is 420 hours in areas where unemployment rates are high.
And anyone who files for EI benefits between October 2020, and September 2021, can collect benefits for 50 weeks. Previously, the maximum duration for benefits was 42 weeks.
Derek Butler, executive director of the Association of Seafood Producers told Saltwire the “temporary change to the EI program is resulting in a lack of availability of workers in some facilities.”
According to Butler, some workers are walking away after working 120 hours.
That shortage of workers, he added, is having a ripple effect.
“If we don't have the required number of workers in these facilities, there may be a delay in processing, which could also impact the purchasing of product from harvesters,” he said.
Crab fishing season ramped up a couple of weeks ago, and with so many boats on the water there's a lot of product to push through the assembly lines.
Some processors have had to ask harvesters to limit the number of fishing trips.
“We've always had some trip limits to ensure quality, but the lack of workers is now a contributing factor,” he said.
Other provinces in Atlantic Canada hire a couple of thousand temporary foreign workers each year for seafood processing lines.
Each year, about 4,000 workers arrive from Mexico and the Caribbean to work in fish plants and on farms in P.E.I., N.S. and N.B.
Some Newfoundland seafood production facilities have hired foreign workers, though not at the same rate as in other provinces.
However, if the challenge to find workers persists in the seasons to come, that rate may increase.
“It will certainly become more common, of necessity,” said Butler.
“With the current demographics of those in the industry, hiring temporary foreign workers may be a future solution for some processing companies.
“The goal at the end of the day is to be able to provide employment in processing facilities — to have the capacity to accept and produce seafood from harvesters in an efficient and timely manner to ensure premium quality product, so that it's beneficial for all involved.”
Butler added the association has reached out to the provincial and federal governments to express concerns about the impact of the temporary EI regulations on the seafood processing industry.
He said the province responded it understanda the concern but that EI regulations are federal.
According to Butler, the federal government responded “that they hear us and to stay tuned.”