The federal government announced up to $94.5 million in funding for the 14 groups over five years through the Sectoral Workforce Solutions Program.

The funds are intended to assist 14 organizations develop informational products and employer toolkits to help workers and businesses adapt to current labour market challenges, a federal news release said.

These tools include forecast reports, dashboards on topics like job vacancies by key occupations, and sector-specific growth opportunities.

These are intended to offer job seekers, workers, employers and training providers a detailed view of the challenges and needs within each sector.

The aim is to ultimately help reduce skills shortages, improve job readiness, and support long-term growth across multiple industries, the federal government said.

Other organizations funded represent the energy, construction, trucking, advanced manufacturing, aerospace, tourism, forestry, mining, information and communications technology, the environment and the bio-economy sectors.

These sectors account for 66.2 per cent of Canada’s gross domestic product and employ about 9.9 million workers, the news release said.

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“I think we need to find our hook in some of those core government priorities,” said Brodie Berigan, the Canadian Federation of Agriculture’s (CFA) senior director of government relations and farm policy.

Berigan spoke alongside Food and Beverage Canada CEO Kristina Farrell and Canadian Agricultural Human Resources Council (CAHRC) executive director Jennifer Wright in a webinar on June 26.

Large financial commitments to things like defense and housing could draw away workers from an already strained agriculture and food labour force, Wright said.

The sector should look at how its priorities fit into the government’s mandate and use that as an entry point for advocacy, Berigan said.

Prime Minister Mark Carney set seven priorities in his mandate letter earlier this year, including building “one Canadian economy” by removing barriers to interprovincial trade, establishing a new economic and security relationship with the U.S., strengthening the Canadian Armed Forces, and making housing more affordable.

The mandate letter also mentioned “attracting the best talent in the world” while balancing immigration rates.

It’s hard to know what this means, Berigan said. He speculated this could be targeted at Americans who are feeling insecure in their job and who may be interested to move to Canada.

Need to build consensus

The Agri-food sector needs also needs to agree on what it needs so it can present a unified voice to the government.

“When you are the government, and you have a diverse set of stakeholders who are calling for different things, it’s very easy to do nothing,” Berigan said.

More than 100 members of the agriculture and food sector met for a summit on June 11 and 12 in Toronto. Berigan said the need to strengthen employers’ human resource capacity came up a lot—specifically, the need to support employers to build capacity around tech solutions and a labour pool that will increasingly rely on technology to drive productivity.

The sector also needs to identify its skills gaps, said Farrell. Berigan said the need for a “skills gap map” came up at the summit. The government already has some of this data, but needs to hear it from the industry.

Programs in flux

The federal government is at the beginning of a new mandate and structuring its priorities, Berigan said. A lot of programs are in flux, including the Temporary Foreign Worker Program.

The sector needs to clearly articulate the advantage of pursuing a multi-pronged approach like the National Workforce Strategic Plan that the CFA, CAHRC and Food and Beverage Canada have developed, he added. It also needs some sense as to how it will implement it.

“I think the clock is definitely ticking,” Berigan said.

“Unless we’re in there, able to articulate the value and the role of these types of strategies and the importance of them, decisions are going to be made without us.”

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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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“Workers tend to point to low pay and limited career growth as the main reasons they are less interested in agriculture [jobs],” says a new ‘state of the industry’ report from the Canadian Agricultural Human Resource Council (CAHRC).

The report, released today, quantifies the current agricultural labour deficit, drawing heavily on surveys done with employers and employees in 2023. The Conference Board of Canada conducted the study on CAHRC’s behalf.

The report noted that worker turnover is at a record high. In 2022, the voluntary turnover rate of agriculture jobs was 14 per cent, up from 10 per cent in 2018. The Canada-wide rate in 2022 was 7.7 per cent.

This varies widely across various types of agricultural jobs. Aquaculture jobs have a voluntary turnover rate of less than five per cent–the lowest of all ag sectors surveyed. Dairy comes in second-lowest with just under 10 per cent. “Support activities for farms” has the highest turnover rate of more than 20 per cent, closely followed by poultry and egg farming.

When asked why they thought employees weren’t sticking around, employers ranked “work is too physical” as the leading reason, with low pay and benefits as the second, and long working hours in third.

When asked what factors limited their interest in agriculture, more than half of employees said low wages and benefits. Limited career paths or opportunities for advancement came second, followed by low job security.

Less than 20 per cent said physical labour was a problem, as compared to nearly 40 per cent of employers. Just over 10 per cent said long hours was an issue, compared to about 30 per cent of employers.

CAHRC noted it surveyed people currently employed in agriculture.

The results suggest employers who prioritize wages and career opportunities could improve retention, CAHRC said.

The average agricultural wage is a bit less than $20 per hour, while the average Canadian wage is just over $25 per hour, the report said. Greenhouse and nursery, and fruit and vegetable workers tend to be the lowest paid. Grain and oilseed workers tend to be the highest-paid farm labourers, with an average wage of about $25 per hour. However, this still puts it behind manufacturing, which averages just above $25, and construction, which is just under $30 per hour.

None of these can compete, wage-wise, with oil and gas–its average wage is just shy of $40 per hour.

Yet, CAHRC noted that higher wages alone doesn’t eliminate vacancies.

Grain and oilseed farm worker wages are the highest in agriculture, yet these farms have a job vacancy rate of seven per cent. That’s lower than other agricultural sectors, but above the Canadian average of nearly six per cent.

“Employers in grain and oilseed struggle with recruiting because of their rural location, seasonal hours and manual labour needs,” the report said.

Employees also noted that work environment and management were important. Nearly 30 per cent cited poor management as their primary reason for leaving jobs.

Supply and demand

In general labour outlook, CAHRC reported that more than 28,200 jobs went unfilled during the peak season in 2022. Labour shortages caused a 3.7 per cent decline in sales in 2022, which resulted in lost sales worth an estimated $3.5 billion.

Agricultural employers are increasingly turning to foreign workers. Between 2017 and 2022, the number of foreign workers increased by more than 30 per cent.

CAHRC estimated that the domestic labour gap in the ag sector will increase 15 per cent by 2030. An aging population will be a key driver, as the ag industry will see over 85,300 retirements in the next eight years.

“Even with four out of five of otherwise vacant positions expected to be filled by foreign workers, 22,200 jobs will still be vacant during peak season… by the end of the decade,” the report said.

Crop production industries are projected to have the largest number of vacant jobs, with 15,200 in 2030.

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“We are currently seeking eligible partners across Canada that have existing training programs that may be in need of further refinement or support,” it said in an emailed newsletter.

Eligible organizations can access funding between Feb. 1 and March 31 of this year, CAHRC’s website says. The training programs must be ready for delivery so participants may finish them by the end of March.

Funding may be used for things like enhancement of programs and materials, funding to deliver training in Indigenous communities or at an institution, and for ‘wrap around’ supports for participants, such as transportation or childcare allowances.

CAHRC will ask for an in-kind contribution of 10 per cent of the training program’s total budget.

The deadline to apply is Jan. 31.

—Geralyn Wichers is associate digital editor with AgCanada. She writes from southeast Manitoba.

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