Research by the Conference Board of Canada concluded that the Canadian ag industry lost about $3.5 billion in sales last year because of a shortage of workers.
That’s up from a lost of $2.8 billion in 2020.
Agriculture has a job vacancy rate of 7.4 per cent which is more than the Canadian average...
About 25 per cent of the Canadian agriculture labour force was foreign workers.
Shedding light on the overall ag labour situation will help stakeholders identify ways to manage the issue, said Jennifer Wright, executive director of the Canadian Agriculture Human Resources Council.
“We cannot solve the issues facing our sector if we do not know exactly what they are and where they exist. That is why this new data is so important,” she said in a statement.
“The information tells us there is an urgent need to boost labour supply and empower domestic and foreign workers to secure the industry’s future viability.”
