NOVEMBER 2018 • COUNTRY LIFE IN BC


Farms scramble as thousands of


jobs go unfilled New survey will forecast needs through 2029


by PETER MITHAM


VANCOUVER – On-farm unemployment is at its lowest level in a decade, but the pool of labour available to farmers is also smaller. Statistics Canada reports that the unemployment rate among BC farm workers last year was 9%, with just 2,600 workers out of work. The last time there were that few workers to go around was 2007, when just 2,200 workers were unemployed. But the workforce has shrunk considerably since then: in 2007, there were 37,100 farm workers in the province. Today, there are just 28,800.


The shrinking pool of


workers means many farmers are looking abroad for help, but the Canadian Agricultural Human Resource Council (CAHRC) wants to see if there are other solutions. It recently launched an online survey it wants farmers across the country to complete to give a better sense of the challenges farm employers are facing, and how those challenges have changed since it assessed the labour market in 2014. “This survey will augment


the previous LMI [labour market information] research


and will provide valuable data to track ongoing employment needs of farmers and farm workers so that policies, programs, tools and resources can be developed to meet those needs,” explained Debra Hauer, AgriLMI project manager for the council, in a media release announcing the survey. CAHRC’s last study found that demand for farm workers in BC would hit 45,000 by 2025, up from approximately 43,300 in 2014. While many farms have been addressing labour needs through automation and tapping into temporary foreign workers, those options are too expensive for some farms. Many growers discovered this year that even accessing foreign workers can be a challenge when government protocols change. The cost to growers is real. Many growers lacked the hands needed to harvest produce this year,


contributing to annual losses that CAHRC estimated at more than $60 million in 2014. The value is set to increase as farms plant new, high-value crops, and food costs increase thanks to the inflationary effect of rising fuel costs and exchange rates. A local workforce can help


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The horticulture sector lacks more than 2,350 harvesters at peak season. SEAN HITREC FILE PHOTO


offset those costs, but CAHRC pegged the ongoing shortfall in workers at 11,200 by 2025, up from 9,000 in 2014. The new survey will fine-tune those numbers for the period through 2029, but the labour gap isn’t shrinking. A study of the horticulture


sector Ann Marie Walsh completed this summer for the BC Landscape and Nursery Association in partnership with Roslyn Kunin & Associates Inc. found that in


2017 nearly 600 nursery and greenhouse positions went unfilled each quarter, while the horticulture sector lacked up to 2,350 harvesters in the peak season. In addition, more than 1,000 landscaping positions went unfilled during the high season. The report concluded that


the worker shortage threatened the sector’s survival. “The nature of the work, the perception of the


industry and competition from other industries in a tight labour market all contribute to the difficulties in generating an adequate supply of workers,” it said, encouraging stakeholders to work together to develop best practices that will “attract, train, and retain workers.”


CAHRC will release the


results of its survey, which wraps up November 30, in early 2019.


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