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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The Canada Carbon Rebate for Small Businesses was announced in this year’s federal budget, and while details are still scant, it will return a portion of the price on pollution through a refundable tax credit. 

The Canada Revenue Agency estimated the retroactive payments total $2.5 billion, beginning in the 2019-20 fuel charge year until the 2023-24 year.  

A spokesperson said the payment amounts and when they will be made are still undetermined, but it’s critical that taxes be filed on time to qualify. 

Technically, those taxes had to be filed June 30, but Ottawa implemented a two-week extension. 

CRA said the rebate will equal the number of people employed by the eligible “Canadian-controlled private corporations” multiplied by the payment rate. The employees must have received T-4s. 

To be eligible, the business must have employed at least one person in a designated province in the calendar year, had 499 or fewer employees throughout Canada and filed its taxes. 

There is no application for the rebate; it will automatically be calculated and issued. 

The designated provinces include Ontario, Saskatchewan, and Manitoba for all fuel charge years, Alberta for 2020-21 and beyond and the four Atlantic provinces for 2023-24. 

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The economy added just a net 100 jobs last month, Statistics Canada said. Analysts polled by Reuters had forecast a net gain of 13,500 jobs and the unemployment rate to tick up to 5.9 per cent from 5.8 per cent in November.

The average hourly wage growth for permanent employees – a figure closely watched by the central bank – accelerated to an annual rate of 5.7 per cent in December – the highest since January 2021 – from 5.0 per cent in November, Statscan said.

“The main story here is we are seeing some cool down in the job market,” said Doug Porter, chief economist at BMO Capital Markets. “The one disturbing aspect for the (central) bank is that average hourly wages took a big step up in the month.”

The Bank of Canada (BoC) has said wage growth that sticks above 4 per cent would hinder its efforts to sufficiently cool inflation.

The Canadian dollar was trading 0.1 per cent lower at 1.3360 per U.S. dollar, or 74.85 U.S. cents, after earlier touching a 17-day low at 1.3398. The Canadian jobs figures were released at the same time as U.S. data, which showed the economy there added more workers than expected in December.

Wage growth in Canada has remained strong even though job growth has eased in recent months as the economy slows under the impact of the BoC’s 10 rate hikes between March 2022 and July 2023. Canada’s economic growth was flat in October.

“The stagnation in employment, which follows sluggish GDP growth last year, suggests that the impacts of high interest rates are becoming more widespread across the economy,” said Royce Mendes, head of macro strategy at Desjardins Group.

The BoC has left its key policy rate on hold at a 22-year high of 5 per cent since July as it weighs whether rates are high enough to bring inflation back to a 2 per cent target.

But with inflation slowly ticking down and an unexpected contraction in third-quarter gross domestic product, money markets and economists expect the bank to start cutting rates in the first half of 2024.

“With wage numbers like this, the Bank of Canada will remain concerned about the inflation risk being still slanted to the upside,” said Derek Holt, vice president of capital markets economics at Scotiabank. “Markets are still aggressive in pricing cuts as soon as the March or April meetings.”

Canada’s economy added an average of 23,000 jobs per month during the last half of 2023, compared with an average of 48,000 per month in the first half of last year, Statscan said.

December’s gains were entirely in part-time work that offset a job losses in full-time work. Employment in the goods sector decreased by a net 42,900 jobs, driven by losses in manufacturing, construction and agricultural jobs.

Those losses were balanced out by a net 43,100 positions gained in the services sector, led by increases in the professional, scientific and technical services as well as health care and social assistance.

In the services segment, the wholesale and retail trade sector recorded their third consecutive month of job losses, another sign of a slowing economy.

The central bank’s next rate announcement is on Jan. 24, after the release of December inflation data on Jan. 21.

–Additional reporting for Reuters by Dale Smith in Ottawa and Fergal Smith and Divya Rajagopal in Toronto.

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Olymel announced Friday that CSN-represented workers at the Bacon Inter-America facility, who’d been on strike since May 26, voted 93.6 per cent in favour of the deal. The company said the agreement was proposed by provincial conciliator Diane Larouche.

Olymel said Friday the size of the vote in favour of the deal will allow for “a serene resumption of plant operations from the beginning of next week, after verification of the availability of the raw material” — that is, pork bellies.

The company also said it believes the improvements in the agreement “will be a positive factor for the work climate, as well as for hiring and retention of employees.”

The new agreement comes during a particularly unprofitable spell for Olymel, which has already been in deep cost-cutting mode for months. Last fall it cut dozens of administrative and management positions through attrition and layoffs.

Since then, the company has closed three pork further-processing plants in Quebec and has plans in place to shut its hog slaughter plant at Vallee-Jonction, Que. before the end of the year.

Further west, where Olymel operates a major hog slaughter plant at Red Deer, Alta., the company more recently announced plans to dial back its Prairie hog production by idling six company-owned sow units in Alberta and Saskatchewan starting sometime in the next several months.

The workers’ union local, the Syndicat des travailleuses et travailleurs de Bacon Inter-America–CSN, in a separate release Friday, said the deal gives the Drummondville plant’s 500-odd workers a $4.55 per hour wage increase over four years, including $1.75 an hour in the first year.

The deal also calls for a 9.6 per cent decrease in employee contributions to insurance, plus improvements to pensions, the union said.

Pascal Bastarache, president of the Conseil central du Coeur du Quebec–CSN, said in the union’s release that Olymel “had no choice” but to take inflation and shortages of available labour into account, adding that this deal represents “a signal for the other employers in the region.”

The union, in a separate release June 13, cited Scotiabank data showing the average retail price of bacon has risen by about 30 per cent between December 2019 and December 2022.

Melanie Cloutier, president of the Drummondville union, said the plant’s business is profitable, bacon is a growth market and the company “cannot put all of Olymel’s difficulties on us.” — Glacier FarmMedia Network

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“It depends on whether employees that aren’t vaccinated will get vaccinated, or would they leave their jobs,” Wade Sobkowich, executive director of the Western Grain Elevator Association (WGEA) said in an interview Thursday. “In that case do we end up in a deficit of human resources to keep the grain supply chain functioning?”

The Canadian government will “make vaccination mandatory in federally regulated workplaces,” including grain elevators, through regulations under Part II of the Canada Labour Code, it announced in a news release Tuesday.

“The government will consult with key stakeholders, including representatives of small and medium-sized employers, as it works expeditiously to finalize the new regulations, which would come into force in early 2022,” the release says.

Why it matters: Vaccination rates are generally lower in rural areas where most grain elevators are. When new federal regulations require all elevator employees be vaccinated against COVID-19 or lose their jobs it’s possible some facilities will be short-staffed.

The WGEA wants more details about Ottawa’s new vaccine mandate, but as of Thursday Sobkowich said he understood ongoing COVID testing would not be allowed in lieu of vaccination.

That’s Hugh Wagner’s interpretation too. The general secretary of the Grain and General Services Union also believes, based on legal opinions, if enacted with a clear, consistent policy and allowing workers time to get vaccinated, employers can demand workers be vaccinated.

“(I)f an employer goes about it the right way, following those steps that I have just laid out, then they likely can implement a mandatory vaccination policy and the employees will have to adhere to it if they want to continue to their job,” Wagner, whose union represents about 800 workers, mainly in Saskatchewan working at some Viterra and Richardson facilities, said in an interview Thursday.

“We have also advised union members that there may be situations… be they medical or reasons of religion, where an individual can raise a question or a challenge as to an exemption, but that is a very high bar to overcome.

“I’ve told people very explicitly that you might say it’s against your religion but actually with all the major religions on board with vaccinations, what you’re really saying is it’s your interpretation of your religion. That won’t get you a get-out-of-jail-free card.”

Asked if he thought grain companies can implement the vaccine mandate with a minimum of disruption, Sobkowich replied: “I hope so. It depends on the region. It depends on how employees react. It’s difficult to predict at this point.”

There are a number of elevators in Manitoba’s Southern Health District where the following six municipalities have the lowest vaccination rates in Manitoba:

(Source: Manitoba Health)

As of Dec. 8 more than half of the COVID-infected patients in Manitoba intensive care units (ICU) were from Southern Health, which accounts for just 15 per cent of Manitoba’s population. Of those infected patients 92 per cent were either not vaccinated or had just one dose.

Meanwhile, the number of ICU cases continues to grow forcing Manitoba Health to cancel more surgeries and diagnostic procedures. Doctors Manitoba puts the backlog of 152,000.

“The (WGEA) member companies are fully supportive of as many Canadians receiving the vaccine as possible,” Sobkowich said.

“The grain companies continue to promote vaccinations among workers. It’s a sensitive issue and one that needs to be approached considering the perspectives of all the stakeholders. There are a number of questions that really need more fleshing out. In the midst of getting on board with the government’s mandate there are a number of questions that need to be answered.”

Some of them include rules around employers asking employees about their vaccination status, he said.

Vaccination is the best line of defence against COVID-19, the government release says.

“It not only protects those who are vaccinated, but it protects vulnerable populations like young children who aren’t yet able to get vaccinated,” the release says. “To finish the fight against COVID-19, protect workers and their families, and ensure businesses can get back up to speed, we need to do everything we can to keep public spaces safe, particularly as we continue to face new variants.”

Mandatory vaccination is already required for employees working in the federally regulated air, rail, and marine transportation sectors, and travellers using these modes of transportation.

There are about 18,500 employers in federally regulated industries, including federal Crown corporations, which together employ 955,000 people. That’s about six per cent of all Canadian employees.

The majority (87 per cent) work in companies with 100 or more employees, the release says.
These figures exclude the federal public service.

Including the federal public service, there are approximately 19,000 employers and 1.3 million employees, which represents about 8.5 per cent of all employees in Canada.

All federal public servants in the Core Public Administration, including RCMP members and reservists, must be vaccinated against COVID-19.

This requirement applies whether employees are teleworking, working remotely or working on-site. More than 95 per cent of employees have attested to being fully vaccinated and approximately 98 per cent have had at least one dose.

“Employers who do not comply with their obligations under the Canada Labour Code may be subject to compliance and enforcement measures, including administrative monetary penalties,” the release says.

“In recognition of Indigenous peoples’ right to self-determination and self-government, Indigenous governing bodies and First Nation band councils will be exempted from the new requirements. The government of Canada will work with Indigenous partners to provide information on the new measures should they wish to follow the same approach, however, doing so will be at their discretion. This is also in line with the Government’s commitment to implement the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples.”

A copy of the consultation paper on the new vaccination mandate may be requested from the Labour Program by email.

— Allan Dawson is a reporter for the Manitoba Co-operator.

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Statistics Canada data Nov. 5 showed the national unemployment rate hit a 20-month low in October. The shortage of skilled and unskilled workers threatens to hurt economic growth and fuel inflation, which is already at an 18-year high.

“Talent is an issue in every sector, at every level of the value chain, in every part of the country, and there’s no silver-bullet fix at hand,” said Leah Nord, a senior director at the Canadian Chamber of Commerce.

Industry groups blame the shortage partly on COVID-19 unemployment benefits that alleviated the need for some people to work, and increased demand for better work-life balance among younger workers as older employees retire.

One solution, companies say, is to raise the numbers of temporary foreign workers. The federal government and several provinces are working on possible changes that would shorten the process to bring such workers to Canada and raise the maximum number of temporary foreign workers allowed to work per facility, said Richard Vigneault, spokesman for Quebec pork producer Olymel. The company is looking for 3,000 workers to add to its 14,000-member workforce, he added.

In the energy services sector, which is entering its busiest time of year as the winter drilling season gets underway, a shortage of labour has propelled firms to boost wages 10 per cent since June, according to the Canadian Association of Energy Contractors (CAOEC).

To attract workers, companies are also offering more flexibility in the hours they operate.

Canada’s oil and gas sector contributes about five per cent to national GDP and CAOEC chief executive Mark Scholz said the labour crunch could leave companies unable to capitalize on soaring energy prices.

Precision Drilling, Canada’s biggest rig contractor, is offering referral bonuses and incentives to recruiting teams to help address worker shortages, CEO Kevin Neveu said.

“I’ll tell you, it’s a big challenge right now,” Neveu told a third-quarter earnings call.

Suzanne Benoit, president of aerospace trade group Aero Montreal, said some Canadian companies are considering whether to raise salaries twice in the same year to retain workers.

“They feel obliged, or the people will leave,” Benoit said on the sidelines of the organization’s recent supply chain summit in Montreal, the country’s aerospace hub.

“It’s a perfect storm in the sense that there is inflation, a shortage of workers and the aging of the population,” she added.

The agriculture sector has long struggled to hire enough workers to pick fruits and vegetables. But this year is also seeing shortages of butchers and truck drivers, said Debra Hauer, manager of labour market intelligence at the Canadian Agricultural Human Resources Council.

Staffing shortages may improve as the government transitions people off its main emergency income support program and on to traditional unemployment benefits.

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In rapid succession, the agriculture workplace landscape morphed from a hands-on, in-person machine to one of virtual meetings, touchless billing and payment systems and greater demand for accessible and reliable internet services.

Why it matters: The way farmers interact with their organizations and suppliers could change as those groups change the ways their employees work.

While some businesses had not begun to entertain the flexible hybrid workplace concept, Syngenta was already training for the ironman of all work-from-home marathons – the pandemic.

“I do see the hybrid work environment is here to stay. That’s not going to change,” said Trevor Heck, president of Syngenta Canada. “It’s going to be part of an employee value proposition. They’re going to start to look for companies that have a work style, or work culture, that fits with them.”

A recent study of Canadian workers by Robert Half, a global staffing firm, showed that a third of professionals would look for another job if they were forced to return to an office.

The transition to a flexible workspace offers remote working opportunities, good salaries and the option of advancement without requiring a significant life disruption, like transferring to a new city or province, said Heck.

Syngenta has found this to be the blueprint to luring non-agriculture-based talent from other sectors and into the company to fulfil expanding needs for digital platforms such as marketing tools, analytics, speciality software and even social media. The company is even finding scientists from outside of agriculture.

Managing the strains of new ways of working

The Ontario Federation of Agriculture, much like Syngenta, was already seeing the benefit of being digitally nimble when casting the talent net and had moved to a somewhat hybrid workflow for staff.

They didn’t anticipate the mental health toll the pandemic would have as online meeting demands increased while face-to-face interactions decreased.

“There’s a lot of incredible technology that everyone’s been able to use – Teams and Zoom and webinars – which has allowed us to be really productive and stay connected in a lot of ways,” said Cathy Lennon, OFA general manager. “But there’s definitely fatigue associated with that as well.”

Pre-pandemic, three meetings a day would be unheard of because of the travel time required. Now many in the agriculture industry juggle meetings from morning to night, she said.

“I see days where I, or members of our team, go from meeting to meeting to meeting because it’s just a click away,” she said. “I think the mental strain it’s having is a significant impact across all sectors, but I can only speak to agriculture.”

Despite the challenges, Lennon said the OFA saw increased levels of participation from members across the province in committees and annual general meetings.

Heck said a survey of knowledge workers revealed most want the flexibility of working remotely, but also the ability to connect with colleagues and clients in an office or community environment to develop personal connections.

“That’s been one of the challenges during COVID is that those kinds of community connections and employee one-to-one connections have been disrupted,” he said. “I think that’s had a negative impact on people’s work experience.”

To address employee mental health, Syngenta joined the Canadian Mental Health Association’s Not Myself Today program. They encourage employees to consider their mental health and to take breaks when needed to build long-term resilience for the pandemic.

“It’s those kinds of elements that we’re investing in because we feel that it’s just part of the longterm resilience of employees,” he said. “Even though people talk about productivity, in the end the last thing we want to do is see employees derail because we’re not providing the support that we could be.”

What does an agriculture hybrid office look like?

Post-pandemic, the OFA plans to capitalize on an in-person-virtual hybrid model for meetings to increase the diversity of input for the organization.

The new OFA offices in Guelph will employ a flexible hybrid working model, including face-to-face meetings, team brainstorming events and potentially host other online-only associations and organizations, like AgScape, with a brick-and-mortar facility for in-person events.

To address the shift to a home-based and hybrid-learning model of education adopted by most Ontario educators, AgScape relaunched its in-school programs as interactive digital experiences and virtual camps at the onset of the pandemic, said Taylor Selig, executive director of AgScape.

After assessing the viability of the work-from-home model for employees and the success of the digital programs reaching 5,000 educators, delivering 35,000 resources culminating in 400,000 student engagements, Selig said they decided to move to a virtual office.

“This shift also builds upon our sustainability goals and resilience as a non-profit organization,” said Selig. “We are excited by the freedom and opportunity that moving to a virtual office environment permanently provides to us.”

Selig said post-pandemic AgScape would return to in-classroom programming and continue to expand its geographic reach and impact through its online presence.

While agricultural businesses, organizations and programming have undergone significant technological evolutions, so have producers.

On-farm work has also changed

Keith Currie, first vice-president for the Canadian Federation of Agriculture, said agriculture had a good, steep learning experience over the last year on adapting to a touchless society.

The pandemic increased consumer market demand for local seasonal crops such as sweet corn, local produce and livestock products and the need for new and innovative online platforms where consumers could order, pay and organize product delivery or curbside pickup options.

The demand was so great, Currie, the OFA president at the time, spoke with Ontario agriculture minister Ernie Hardeman about funding for an agricultural-based online commerce program that many used to grow the direct marketing industry.

It also opened the industry to a whole new level of consumer engagement, said Currie. Producers could increase customer contact, capture an increased percentage of consumer dollars while providing good quality services and products online, said Currie.

“I think it’s a positive way we can actually continue to build our consumer confidence and our public trust,” he said. “And get more people out to our area to see our operations, talk to us about our operations and what we do. I think that’ll go a long way in the public trust arena.”

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Trudeau added that beef producers are placing a priority on supplying the Canadian market before exporting products.

Canada, one of the world’s biggest beef and pork exporters, has had several plants idled or slowed as coronavirus inspections spread. Cargill on Monday said it would idle its High River, Alta. beef plant because of an outbreak.

“We are not at this point anticipating shortages of beef, but prices might go up,” Trudeau said at a briefing. “We will of course be monitoring that very, very carefully.”

The tally of coronavirus cases related to the Cargill plant has reached 401, Alberta chief medical health officer Deena Hinshaw said. Another 77 cases have occurred at the JBS beef plant at Brooks, Alta.

North American meat demand has plunged since the pandemic accelerated, as a loss of sales to restaurants, which have closed, outweighs additional revenue from grocery stores.

Beef processors have assured Canadian officials they will prioritize domestic sales, their largest and most stable market, said Oliver Anderson, spokesman for the country’s agriculture minister. The government has not imposed export restrictions, he said.

JBS has reduced production to one shift as of Tuesday at Brooks due to increased absenteeism, said spokesman Cameron Bruett.

Ottawa is “very concerned about outbreaks in the food supply chain,” Health Minister Patty Hajdu told reporters.

Meat processors have taken numerous measures, such as erecting physical barriers and staggering breaks. But those steps and supplies of protective equipment are not applied equally in all plants, said Paul Meinema, national president of the United Food and Commercial Workers. The union represents employees in the country’s biggest meat factories run by Cargill, JBS, Maple Leaf Foods and Olymel.

The plants should slow processing speeds and even shut them down before infections multiply, Meinema said.

Even some government inspectors who work in the plants lack face shields and non-surgical masks, said the Agriculture Union, which represents them.

“There is obviously a shortage,” Agriculture Union president Fabian Murphy said. Seven inspectors in the Cargill plant have tested positive for the novel coronavirus, he said.

Canada’s coronavirus death toll was 1,728 as of Tuesday, a seven per cent rise from the previous day. There have been 37,382 cases reported.

Ontario Premier Doug Ford said a framework to reopen the economy of Canada’s most populous province would come in a few days. On Monday, Ford said any return would be gradual.

Air Canada, the country’s biggest airline, said it would suspend flights between Canada and the United States after April 26.

— Reporting for Reuters by Kelsey Johnson and Rod Nickel; additional reporting by David Ljunggren and Steve Scherer in Ottawa and Amran Abocar in Toronto.

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“We are finding that there are a lot of increased costs this year with COVID-19 and bringing in the employees, so having the extra money will help offset some of those costs,” CHC national labour chair Beth Connery said.

The government is offering $1,500 for each temporary foreign worker coming to Canada to help farmers, fish harvesters, producers and processors cover costs related to containing COVID-19.

The funds can be used to modify housing or pay for accommodations — such as at hotels or in student residences — where employees will take part in a mandatory 14-day isolation period before they can begin working.

Connery, who grows vegetable and fruits near Portage la Prairie, Man., said that on top of the additional costs of paying to accommodate employees during isolation, there are other impacts on farm finances, such as an increased cost in flights and picking up or delivering food to isolated workers.

“It’s not going to be free money. We’ll spend far more than that in additional costs this year,” she said.

“This is a stopgap that will help us get moving. But the reality is we’re going to need more of a financial backstop just because we’re planning on a normal year, but if you get into your season and your workforce disappears on you, and you’ve got a crop out in the field, what do you do?”

Connery said there needs to be further discussions and dialogue with the government “to ensure people grow all the food that we need.”

Currently she has seven Jamaican workers isolating on her farm. She is hoping roughly 50 more seasonal workers will be coming from Mexico.

“We just have no idea when or how many of them we will get,” she said, referencing bureaucratic and logistical challenges in bringing those workers to Canada.

If workers don’t arrive, Connery said they will look to mitigate risks, potentially by trying to find other sources of labour.

“Certainly, even if we do get Canadian labour now, all of our harvest seasons go through to September and October so student labour may not be the answer for us. It may be, it may not,” she said, noting the physically demanding work is not sought after by Canadians.

Canadian Federation of Agriculture (CFA) president Mary Robinson called the funding a “pretty excellent first step.”

“This was really the first kind of meaningful announcement we’ve had in true financial support for agriculture,” she said, adding previous measures were about creating “more favourable credit opportunities” for producers.

Robinson and the CFA continue their calls for increased funding for the AgrInvest program, pointing out the $50 million being made available to the agriculture sector currently is a small fraction of the $250 billion in spending the federal government has planned as part of its financial response to the pandemic.

The program will be available for as long as the Quarantine Act — federal legislation putting in place extraordinary measures to combat the pandemic — remains in force.

Funding is available for anyone with workers who have entered Canada since March 25, when the Act came into force.

However, details of how the funds will be distributed are not yet available.

“We still have to find the best mechanism, the idea is really to provide the money to the employer,” Agriculture Minister Marie Claude Bibeau said, adding the process may be done by federal officials or filtered to provincial associations.

Employers are responsible for paying workers for the two-week quarantine period, and many will also have to provide transportation and accommodations in addition to food and basic supplies.

As well, the support is conditional on employers not being found in violation of the mandatory 14-day isolation protocols being put in place.

“There will be different ways to do the oversight and make sure that the employers and the workers are complying with the isolation protocol and with the quarantine laws,” said Bibeau, adding we can trust that employers care for their employees and want to keep them healthy.

“If we have some people who are not respecting (rules), then they can face severe sanctions and fines as well as not being able to have foreign workers in coming years.”

Immigration officials will be doing targeted inspections in partnership with provincial health authorities and local police forces, according to Bibeau.

In 2018, 56,765 workers were brought to Canada to work in agriculture. The federal funding of $50 million will cover the cost of roughly 33,330 workers.

Bibeau said the funding is based on expected arrivals of temporary foreign workers in April, May and June.

“This is based on the best estimate we have on temporary foreign workers arriving these three months; if we have to increase the amount, this is something we will do,” she said.

In February there were 7,055 temporary foreign workers in Canada – a number that has since risen to around 15,000.

“We expect to have less foreign workers,” Bibeau said, adding different recommendations to incentivize Canadians to work in the sector are being considered and reviewed.

“We definitely want to encourage Canadians to apply and to work in the food supply chain.”

— D.C. Fraser reports for Glacier FarmMedia from Ottawa.

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In Colorado, nearly a third of the workers at a JBS USA beef plant stayed home amid safety concerns for the last two weeks as a 30-year employee of the facility died following complications from the virus.

And since an Olymel pork plant in Quebec shut on March 29, the number of workers who tested positive for the coronavirus quintupled to more than 50, according to their union. The facility and at least 10 others in North America have temporarily closed or reduced production in about the last two weeks because of the pandemic, disrupting food supply chains that have struggled to keep pace with surging demand at grocery stores.

According to more than a dozen interviews with U.S and Canadian plant workers, union leaders and industry analysts, a lack of protective equipment and the nature of “elbow to elbow” work required to debone chickens, chop beef and slice hams are highlighting risks for employees and limiting output as some forego the low-paying work. Companies that added protections, such as enhanced cleaning or spacing out workers, say the moves are further slowing meat production.

Smithfield Foods, the world’s biggest pork processor, on Sunday said it is indefinitely shutting a pork plant that accounts for about four to five per cent of U.S. production. It warned that plant shutdowns are pushing the United States “perilously close to the edge” in meat supplies for grocers.

Lockdowns that aim to stop the spread of the coronavirus have prevented farmers across the globe from delivering food products to consumers. Millions of labourers also cannot get to the fields for harvesting and planting, and there are too few truckers to keep goods moving.

The U.S. and Canada are among the world’s biggest shippers of beef and pork. Food production has continued as governments try to ensure adequate supplies, even as they close broad swathes of the economy.

The closures and increased absenteeism among workers have contributed to drops in the price of livestock, as farmers find fewer places for slaughter. Since March 25, nearby lean hog futures have plunged 35 per cent, and live cattle prices shed 15 per cent, straining the U.S. farm economy.

North American meat demand has dropped some 30 per cent in the past month as declining sales of restaurant meats like steaks and chicken wings outweighed a spike in retail demand for ground beef, said Christine McCracken, Rabobank’s animal protein analyst.

Frozen meats in U.S. cold storage facilities remain plentiful, but supply could be whittled down as exports to protein-hungry China increase after a trade agreement removed obstacles for American meat purchases.

“There’s a huge risk of additional plant closures,” McCracken said.

The latest came on Monday when JBS said it will shutter its Greeley, Colorado, beef plant, which accounts for about five per cent of the country’s production, until April 24.

JBS previously had to reduce production at the facility as about 800 to 1,000 workers a day stayed home since the end of March, said Kim Cordova, president of the local United Food and Commercial Workers (UFCW) union that represents employees. She added that the union knew of at least 50 cases and two deaths among employees as of Friday.

Plant worker Saul Sanchez, known affectionately as “grandpa” among some co-workers, tested positive for the virus and died on April 7 at 78 years old, according to his daughter, Beatriz Rangel. She said he only went from home to work before developing symptoms, including a low fever.

“I’m heartbroken because my dad was so loyal,” Rangel said.

Brazilian-owned JBS confirmed an employee with three decades of experience died from complications associated with COVID-19, without naming Sanchez. He was never symptomatic while at work and never worked in the facility while sick, according to the company.

JBS said it was working with federal and state governments to obtain tests for all plant employees.

Weld County, where the plant is located, had the fourth highest number of COVID-19 cases of any county in Colorado on Friday, according to the state. Health officials confirmed cases among JBS workers.

JBS said high absenteeism at the plant led the process of cutting carcasses into pieces of beef to fall behind slaughter rates. The company disputed the union’s numbers on worker absences but did not provide its own. It took steps including buying masks and putting up plexiglass shields in lunch rooms to protect employees, said Cameron Bruett, spokesman for JBS USA.

“My life is in jeopardy”

At Wayne Farms’ chicken plant in Decatur, Alabama, some workers are upset the company recently made employees pay for masks, said Mona Darby, who inspects chicken breasts there and is a local leader of hundreds of poultry workers for the Retail, Wholesale and Department Store Union.

“My life is in jeopardy because we’re working elbow to elbow,” she said.

Wayne Farms, with annual sales exceeding US$2 billion, is trying to obtain masks to distribute to employees, though supplies are limited, spokesman Frank Singleton said. He said he did not know of any instances where employees were charged for masks.

Workers at a Tyson Foods Inc chicken plant in Shelbyville, Tennessee, bought their own masks when the facility ran out, said Kim Hickerson, who loads chicken on trucks there and is a union leader. Some are talking about quitting because they are scared of getting sick, he said.

“I just put it in God’s hands,” he said.

Tyson, the top U.S. meat producer, is working to find more personal protective equipment for employees, spokesman Worth Sparkman said. The company increased cleaning at facilities and sought to space out employees, which can both slow production, according to a statement.

Workers have lost their trust in Olymel after an outbreak of the coronavirus closed a plant in Yamachiche, Que., according to union spokeswoman Anouk Collet. “They do not feel that the company took all the measures they could have taken to keep them safe,” she said.

Company spokesman Richard Vigneault said the plant will reopen Tuesday with new measures in place, such as separating panels, masks and visors.

Marc Perrone, international president of the UFCW union, said meat plant workers are increasingly weighing concerns about their own safety and their responsibility to produce food.

“If we don’t take care of the food supply, the American people are going to panic,” he said.

— Reporting for Reuters by Tom Polansek in Chicago and Rod Nickel in Winnipeg.

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