“It isn’t that hard to find well-educated people for the meat alternatives but it is hard to find people for the more classic, the meat protein industry,” said Michiel Dekkers, a food recruitment consultant with Dutch agency DUPP.
“We noticed that people make active decisions not to work in meat-processing plants,” he said, referring to the Dutch job market.
Dekkers, along with experts from Denmark and Canada spoke during Manitoba webinar “The Future of Labour in Protein”.
The average Canadian food and beverage processor has six vacant positions, said Kevin Elder of Food Processing Skills Canada. In Manitoba, that’s about 1,500 vacancies.
“Each of those vacant positions… costs $190 net per day to carry,” Elder said. This leads to a $3-billion-per-year loss for the Canadian industry, he said.
Pressure on labour, particularly ‘unskilled’ labour like packing and light processing “is acute and finds its basis in our ability to plan and invest in future general production workers,” said Denise Allen, president and CEO of the Food Processors Association of Canada.
In the Netherlands, meat processors have an image problem more than a people problem, said Dekkers. Meat production is seen as bad for animal well-being and has been wracked by scandal.
I have my own opinions: people don't like killing and bleeding out animals; the environment is noisy, hot and humid on the kill floor and cold and damp in processing rooms; the wages are low after meat pushed them down, beginning in the 1970s.
