Among food manufacturers, job vacancies fell nearly 32 per cent in 2024, while the number of payroll employees fell almost five per cent, wrote FCC senior economist Amanda Norris in a Dec. 18 report. This led to a job vacancy rate of 2.6 per cent.

Despite less competition for workers, wages offered for food manufacturing jobs rose 9.2 per cent year over year.

Beverage manufacturers saw a drop in vacancies of about 21 per cent, while the number of payroll employees rebounded after two years of declines, Norris wrote. This led to an increased labour demand of nearly seven per cent. However, wages offered for these jobs fell 0.2 per cent year-over-year.

Labourers, process control operators and industrial butchers were the most common job vacancies, but the number of openings has reached or fallen below 2019 levels.

Norris said softening demand for workers doesn’t necessarily predict positive tidings. The sector is ending the year with flat sales, and wages are rising to catch up with inflation. FCC predicted stronger sales growth in 2025, but also rising wages.

“Coupled with the uncertainty around both domestic demand and exports, businesses may be more hesitant to expand their workforce,” Norris wrote. “Uncertain times have led to paused investment plans, which does not bode well for the sector’s productivity.”

The food and beverage sector may also face additional labour challenges, as the percentage of its workforce over the age of 55 reached 28 per cent this year.

The federal government has also clamped down on levels of temporary foreign worker employment. Though food and beverage manufacturers are exempt from current program tweaks, FCC said further changes can’t be ruled out.

“We’re expecting a tight labour supply to keep wage growth strong, resulting in tight margins for the food and beverage manufacturing industry in 2025,” Norris said.

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“While we understand the federal government is seized with a housing shortage, temporary foreign workers are not the problem, representing only nine per cent of the temporary resident population,” the groups said in a statement today.

In March, the federal government announced that, effective May 1, some sectors would be allowed no more than 20 per cent of their workforces to be made up of temporary foreign workers (TWFs) brought in via the low wage stream—down from the 30 per cent limit introduced via the Workforce Solution Roadmap in 2022.

The sectors affected were wood product manufacturing, furniture manufacturing, accommodation and food service, and food manufacturing—defined as industries involved in turning agricultural products into ingredients or food items, whether for wholesale or retail, according to the North American Industry Classification System. Construction and healthcare were exempted.

The validity limit of labour market impact assessments (LMIAs) were also reduced. A LMIA is a document employers must obtain before hiring foreign workers. It assesses the impact of hiring foreign workers on the domestic job market and ensures that the employer and job offer are legitimate. In 2022, the maximum validity of LMIAs were extended to 18 months from nine.

The federal government cited reduced job vacancies and a need to reduce Canada’s reliance on foreign workers.

The organizations said the changes are already having an impact on productivity.

“Now with a reduction in the amount of time this assessment is valid as well as the length of time assessors take to review applications, there is concern that the industry will not be able to bring in needed foreign workers,” said Will Lowe, chair of the National Cattle Feeders’ Association.

“If there’s a shortage of workers in the processing sector, it runs the risk that producers can’t ship their product to market, causing uncertainty for producers and consumers alike,” said Rene Roy, chair of the Canadian Pork Council. “We need to help recruit more new Canadians to rural areas, and creating uncertainty defeats our efforts to convince people to come join our industry.”

Meat processors have struggled for years to fill jobs and have come to rely on foreign workers and immigration to maintain their workforces.

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“While some agriculture employers offered these benefits, many participating organizations do not offer any flexible work arrangements or basic benefits like sick days,” CAHRC wrote in a report on its 2024 survey of compensation practices in Canadian agriculture.

The survey encompassed 140 organizations representing 609 employees across major farming sectors (horticulture, beef and poultry are not reported).

It found that on average of 44 per cent of farms offer their employees sick time. Hog farms are most likely to give sick leave (56 per cent) but give the fewest days (3.75 days average) while apiculture (beekeeping) was least likely to offer sick time (21 per cent), but those who did on average allowed employees six sick days per year.

The majority of grain and oilseed (between 60 and 70 per cent), dairy (about 60 per cent) and swine farms (nearly 90 per cent) offered employees vacation time. Those that gave workers between 11 and 13 days off.

Finfish (aquaculture) farms were most likely to offer employees health insurance (a bit more than 80 per cent of farms). Swine farms came next, with nearly 70 per cent reporting health insurance. Around 30 per cent of dairy farms offered health insurance, while about 60 per cent of grain and oilseed farms did so.

The survey also examined employee wages by role.

Grain and oilseed farms consistently paid employees the most. The weighted average wage for farm managers was nearly $38 with a median wage of$39.90. Farm workers were on average paid a bit more than $27 per hour, with a median wage of $28.

Farm managers on dairy farms on average made nearly $26/hr with a median wage of $26, and workers made $21/hr and a median wage of $20/hr.

Hog farms paid managers on average a bit less than $32/hr and workers about $21/hr.

By comparison, employees in the construction sector in 2023 were paid nearly $36/hr on average, across all roles, Statistics Canada data shows. Manufacturing paid an average of $33.50/hr. Transportation and warehousing paid nearly $33/hr. Accommodation and food services paid on average a bit less than $22/hr across all positions.

StatCan data puts the average agriculture sector wage at $24.77 per hour in 2023.

The Canadian job market is expected to slow in 2024 with increasing unemployment rates from labour availability, CAHRC said in the report. However, agriculture is experiencing persistent labour shortages as producers struggle to hire workers.

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The federal government announced Thursday that, effective May 1, some sectors would be allowed no more than 20 per cent of their workforces to be made up of temporary foreign workers (TWFs) brought in via the low wage stream—down from 30 per cent since 2022.

Those sectors are wood product manufacturing, furniture manufacturing, accommodation and food service, and food manufacturing—defined as industries involved in turning agricultural products into ingredients or food items, whether for wholesale or retail, according to the North American Industry Classification System.

These sectors saw the percentage of allowable TFWs increased in 2022 in a bid to address labour shortages.

Construction and healthcare were included in the 2022 increases but are exempted from this week’s changes.

The federal government said the changes are to encourage employers to hire domestically.

“Today, we announced our intention to reduce Canada’s reliance on temporary foreign workers and encourage employers to find the talent they need right here, at home,” said Employment, Workforce Development and Official Languages Minister Randy Boissonnault in a news release yesterday.

Canada’s unemployment rate has hovered around 5.8 per cent for three of the last four months, the news release said. Job vacancies were at a record high in the second quarter of 2022 with nearly 984,000 open positions. In the fourth quarter of 2023, that number fell to 678,500.

Other changes announced include decreasing the time new labour market impact assessments (LMIAs) are valid to six months from 12; and that “employers will need to explore every option before applying for an LMIA — including recruiting asylum seekers with valid work permits here in Canada,” the release said.

Starting at the beginning of the year, employers are required to annually review TFWs’ wages to ensure they’re keeping up with the market rate for that occupation and region. Wages can’t be lowered upon review.

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“Canada needs a veterinary workforce enhancement program that supports expansion and innovation of clinical teaching, training, and research,” said Canadian Veterinary Medical Association president Trevor Lawson in a news release today.

The CVMA said it visited Parliament Hill today to call for more investments in programs to shore up the industry and for mental health support for veterinary workers.

The profession is facing a worker shortage that “poses a significant threat,” the CVMA said.

Between 2022 and 2031, 5,000 veterinary jobs will open due to expansion and replacement needs while only 4,300 job seekers will be available to fill them, the CVMA website says.

The shortage of vets and veterinary workers has been an ongoing topic of concern.

A 2020 survey of Western Canadian vet clinics showed that of 526 practices, 44 per cent of them were looking to fill 281 positions. Practices that had recently hired new workers reported it could take anywhere from three to 12 months to hire someone.

The data suggested that mixed animal practices, which likely are representative of rural and small-town clinics, struggled most to fill openings.

The shortage makes it difficult for vets to provide care, the CVMA said. It also threatens veterinary workers’ well-being, with a survey of Canadian vets showing that more than 89 per cent were suffering from burnout.

The CVMA said the shortage could be addressed by recruiting internationally trained veterinarians, by setting up a national testing centre for vets trained outside of Canada, and by dedicating cash to veterinary infrastructure.

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All major beef-producing countries faced labour shortages during the pandemic. Staffing levels have returned to close to normal in Canada and the U.S. But Australia still faces a shortage. Food industry groups there recently said the country’s food supply chain is currently short at least 172,000 workers, farm to plate. 

The post-farmgate meat supply chain was already underresourced to process the number of livestock forecast to be produced in Australia in 2022, says meat industry executive Patrick Hutchinson. Forecasts for 2023-25 can be anything between a 15 per cent to 35 per cent increase in livestock numbers. This will be catastrophic for Australian farmers if livestock numbers are far greater than the meat processing industry can process and the wider supply chain can manage, he says.

Many new beef plants are planned to open during the next three years in the U.S., as fellow columnist Steve Dittmer writes. Each will face the challenge of finding workers to staff their plants as a labour shortage might worsen in the next few years. Current workers are aging out of the workforce while lower labour participation rates and other factors make demand for skilled labour more acute. 

This is according to a recent report by the American Immigration Council (AIC). It is a non-profit organization that provides legal counsel to immigrants and public education through research and analyses. The report argues the current labour crisis highlights the vital role immigrants occupy in U.S. food production. The AIC examined labour trends within the meat processing and dairy industries and discovered how those trends affect prices consumers pay for meat and dairy products.

Steven Hubbard, PhD, is a senior data scientist with the AIC. Hubbard says he wanted to look at those who work with livestock, those who process the meat, those who transport the meat and then dairy. The biggest finding for him was that those who raise livestock are generally getting older, especially people who are born in the U.S. Those who work in livestock who are foreign-born are generally younger. A lot of hog farmers and cattle ranchers are getting older. Who is taking the place of those workers, he asks.

More than 90,000 workers breed, raise and handle animals on farms, ranches, livestock yards and other facilities across the U.S., according to AIC research. One in five are foreign-born, a significantly higher percentage than the national share of foreign-born workers for all industries combined. Many livestock workers are also approaching retirement age. In the next 10 years, 29.8 per cent of livestock workers will have reached the age of 65. Most of these older workers are U.S.-born and only 11.1 per cent are foreign-born. Of the workers who will not reach age 65 in the next 10 years, almost one in four are foreign-born.

As such, the meat industry will increasingly rely on immigrant workers to care for animals.

The AIC report says that in the meatpacking industry, foreign-born workers made up 45.4 per cent of the workforce during the early days of the pandemic, 28 percentage points higher than the average share for all industries combined. But since then, the labour participation rate among meatpackers has fallen. Immigration reform seems a must.

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Agricorp, the province’s farm program delivery agency, announced in late December the feature first introduced in 2020 will be included again in 2022, at the same coverage level provided in the 2021 program year.

Agricorp said it will automatically add the coverage to customer policies for 2022 and farmers won’t need to sign up to get it. Insured farms will be covered for the COVID-19 labour disruption peril whether they chose multi-peril or a single peril of hail, frost, or hail and frost.

Specifically, the coverage is for production losses that are due to a producer’s illness or quarantine due to COVID-19; an inability to fulfill contracted on-farm labour due to COVID-19; and/or illness or quarantine of on-farm labour due to COVID-19.

In those cases, the policy will include production loss coverage for yield-based commodities; abandonment threshold coverage for fresh vegetables, on an acreage loss basis; mortality loss coverage for fruit trees and grape vines; and colony loss coverage for bee health.

Such losses will be covered for the “full duration” of a farm’s 2022 policy, from when the crop is planted until harvest or until the end of the farm’s policy term, Agricorp said.

That means it covers on-farm labour disruption losses through the growing season for the insured commodity — such as labour required to care for a crop after planting — as well as on-farm labour disruptions at harvest.

A farmer covered for such losses will need to contact Agricorp “without delay” if yield losses or mortalities in trees, vines or bees take place due to on-farm labour disruption.

The coverage applies to all commodities except forage, Agricorp said, and does not apply to coverages not listed above — that is, coverages such as unseeded acreage, replanting, salvage or bypassed acreage. It also doesn’t cover crops intended to be harvested in 2023 — for example, winter wheat seeded this fall.

The added coverage also doesn’t extend to “post-harvest” labour disruption losses such as in an on-farm or off-farm packing house or processing facility, nor to transportation of crops.

It also won’t cover loss of market for any reason, including COVID-19 — for example, a lack of customers at a U-pick farm. Losses that “cannot be verified” or aren’t directly related to the insured farm’s operations also won’t be covered.

Also, Agricorp noted, “it is important to understand that this added peril will not increase the existing limits of your coverage, but will be assessed within them.”

The coverage also requires farmers to make a “good faith effort to secure sufficient labour” for the 2022 program year, Agricorp said, meaning the agency may ask for information about steps taken to secure labour. — Glacier FarmMedia Network

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Producers already enrolled in an eligible production insurance plan and hit by crop losses due to labour disruptions during the 2020 growing season will be able to get further insurance coverage, the Ontario and federal governments said Thursday.

Specifics weren’t immediately available Thursday, but the governments said the coverage will insure those enrolled against “inability to attract sufficient on-farm labour due to COVID-19” and “illness or quarantine of on-farm labour and the producer due to COVID-19.”

Farms growing fruits and vegetables such as tomatoes, melons and peaches are “labour-intensive and highly dependent on seasonal agricultural workers,” the governments said.

The COVID-19 pandemic “has interrupted regular flows of worker travel and has resulted in some gaps in labour availability,” including COVID-19 outbreaks among several farms’ seasonal workers.

Farmers whose COVID-19 related labour disruptions are having an impact on crops are expected to notify Agricorp, the provincial farm program delivery agency, “as soon as possible.”

The Ontario Fruit and Vegetable Growers Association on Thursday hailed the new coverage as “the first of its kind in Canada,” noting it was “developed and rolled out at a speed and urgency that is highly unusual for new safety net measures.”

Doing so, the OFVGA said, “was only possible by using an existing program like crop insurance with its yield data and underwriting/adjustment processes.”

The association said it “recognizes the importance of applying the lessons learned from this unprecedented new coverage, to extend it to the rest of the edible horticulture sector.”

OFVGA is “committed to working towards the goal of extending these important assurances to all growers, including those not presently covered under crop insurance,” OFVGA chair Bill George said in a separate release.

“By enhancing AgriInsurance coverage to include labour shortages due to COVID-19 for eligible farmers, we are directly responding to their requests for support and protecting Ontario’s agri-food sector so it can continue producing the food our province needs,” provincial Ag Minister Ernie Hardeman said in the governments’ release.

The federal government noted it had pledged in May to work with provinces to “explore possibilities” for AgriInsurance expansion to include labour shortages as an eligible risk for the horticulture sector.

“I congratulate Ontario for being the first province to take this important step that recognizes the hardships Ontario farmers and food producers have faced because of worker shortages, and gives them the added support they need,” federal Ag Minister Marie-Claude Bibeau said in Thursday’s release. –– Glacier FarmMedia Network

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“Many of the cannabis producers are very cash rich. They’ve got the resources to pay a very good wage,” said Andrew Morse, head of the Flowers Canada industry group.

Canada’s greenhouse, nursery and floriculture sectors employ 16 percent of all workers in Canadian agriculture. The industry has been grappling with a tight labor supply for years, and the current record low national unemployment rate is compounding the problem.

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s government legalized cannabis in October 2018 and the industry has been rapidly expanding. The emerging sector, farm groups say, is posing a new challenge for traditional greenhouse growers.

The skills required for working in greenhouses – whether growing cannabis or flowers or vegetables – are similar.

Even before cannabis was legalized, the horticulture industry lost C$100 million ($76 million) after 2,800 jobs went unfilled in 2014, the Canadian Agriculture Human Resource Council (CAHRC) said, citing the latest data available. That gap is expected to grow to 7,500 workers by 2025, CAHRC said.

Ontario, Canada’s most populous province, is home to two-thirds of the country’s greenhouse, nursery and floriculture industry. The province’s flower sector is the third-largest in North America, behind California and Florida, growing about C$800 million in flowers each year, Morse said.

The lure of cannabis is not only a higher wage, but also the fact that it is a rapidly growing new industry, said Justine Taylor, a manager of the Ontario association that represents tomato, cucumber and pepper growers.

“It’s an exciting new field, it’s very attractive to young people, especially, (those) trying to get into the sector,” Taylor said.

Statistics Canada said last year that the cannabis sector was a “budding source of employment,” with some 10,400 workers in November 2018, just after legalization, a 266% increase from a year earlier. There is no cannabis labor data yet for 2019.

Last year, the average hourly wage for employees in cannabis-related jobs was C$29.58, almost 10 percent higher than the national average, Statscan said.

The most acute labor gaps are in middle management, Taylor said, so greenhouse operators are “putting a lot more resources into recruiting,” including overseas.

Greenhouses may also need to “lean more heavily on foreign worker programs or they might have to look for ways to incentivize the local population to take on more of those jobs,” Morse said. Foreign workers account for 28% of the sector’s employees, with many farms relying on a federal program that brings in seasonal, low-skilled labor.

Some farms are also making significant investments in automation technology to combat the labor shortfalls, he said.

Another knock-on effect of the cannabis boom is a shortage of tradesmen.

“We’re all kind of fighting for the same trades people, the same repair people,” said Linda Delli Santi, head of the Greenhouse Growers Association in British Columbia. “Even if you’re building a new greenhouse, getting all the trades on site are often difficult because those people are busy with cannabis operations, too.”

($1 = 1.3166 Canadian dollars)

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Farmers in Canada have long reported challenges in recruiting farm workers because the rural-based work traditionally involves a high degree of manual labour, long hours, and is often seasonal.

In 2017, Canada’s agriculture sector was short 16,500 workers, a labour crunch that cost farmers $2.9 billion in lost revenues, the council said in a new report on Canada’s agricultural workforce prepared with the Conference Board of Canada.

“In the coming years, the gap between the sector’s labor requirements and the available pool of domestic labour is expected to widen considerably, a trend that would place more agricultural businesses at risk and seriously impede the sector’s growth potential,” the report said.

The agriculture industry’s struggle to find domestic workers means farmers are heavily reliant on temporary foreign labour, brought to Canada though various streams of the Temporary Foreign Worker program. Foreign labour now accounts for 17 per cent of the sector’s employees.

On Tuesday, the council said the agriculture sector’s job-vacancy rate is “the highest of any major sector in the Canadian economy.” About two million Canadians are employed by Canada’s agriculture and agri-food sector, accounting for one in eight jobs or 12 per cent of total Canadian employment.

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s government challenged Canada’s agriculture industry to increase its exports to $75 billion by 2025. Canada is currently the world’s fifth largest exporter of agricultural goods.

— Reporting for Reuters by Kelsey Johnson in Ottawa.

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