Atlantic Beef Products going to Brazil to find skilled workers

Atlantic Beef Products is going abroad to find specialized staff because it’s having a hard time finding the right workers on P.E.I.

The meat packing company is heading to Brazil for a recruitment mission with the goal of finding between 15 and 30 workers who have experience in the beef processing industry. 

Company recruiters, with the help of provincial and federal immigration officials, will visit the Brazilian cities of São Paulo and Goiânia over a seven or eight-day stretch in late September.

“Brazil has a very large beef processing industry, and Brazil, there’s a lot of interest from people who want to come to Canada — potentially to live here as a permanent resident some day,” said Russ Mallard, Atlantic Beef Products president.

 

 

 “In P.E.I. it’s very obvious to us that if we didn’t have an immigration assistance program here and we weren’t actively trying to help people come to Canada, that we would have a very desperate shortage of employees”

 

The company is specifically looking to find industrial beef cutters — people who can make skilful beef cuts that work for both retailers and restaurants.

Mallard said that while people can be trained to do that job, it takes time for workers to become proficient at it.

The company is specifically looking to find industrial beef cutters, people who can make skillful beef cuts that work for both the company’s retail and food service clients. (Jaison Empson/CBC)

“Most of the workers that we hire here either locally or through various immigration programs don’t necessarily come to us with the skills that we need,” he said.

“It can take a year or two for these people to get really good at these particular jobs, and the nature of meat business across the country is that there’s a reasonably high turnover rate in the industry. So we find ourselves training people and training people.”

Mallard said young people are not as interested in getting into the butcher trade, and that there’s a lack of training programs available in Atlantic Canada. 

He said getting workers from other provinces is also a challenge.

“It’s not quite as easy to get folks to move to another part of Canada,” he said. “As lovely as P.E.I. is, it’s not always potentially workable as it is for people that view Canada as a really attractive opportunity.”

‘Desperate’ worker shortage without immigration programs

The company won’t be recruiting temporary foreign workers, but looking to fill permanent positions, Mallard said. 

The recruits would be immigrating through provincial permanent residence streams, which means they must meet requirements like having a high school education, know English or French and have the financial means to move to Canada.

Atlantic Beef Products has received about a hundred applications so far, but only 15 per cent meet those requirements, Mallard said.

Russ Mallard, the president of Atlantic Beef Products, says the company would likely be facing a ‘desperate’ labour shortage if it didn’t have international workers. (Karen Mair/CBC)

The president said once the workers relocate, the company will help sponsor them with their permanent residence application.

He said if the company didn’t recruit workers through immigration programs, Atlantic Beef Products could face “possibly crippling” labour shortages. 

“In P.E.I. it’s very obvious to us that if we didn’t have an immigration assistance program here and we weren’t actively trying to help people come to Canada, that we would have a very desperate shortage of employees,” he said.

Mallard said they’ve had workers from Brazil in the past and that they’ve been able to contribute “right away.” This is the first time the company is sending a recruitment mission to the South American country.

Atlantic Beef Products currently employs about 180 people on P.E.I., Mallard said.