By Jonathan Charlton
jonathan@peicanada.com

With the Ocean Choice plant in Souris closed, other processors may not have to hire as many foreign workers as in past years.
Pam Perrot, general manager of Beach Point Processing said that plant has been hiring foreign workers for the past two years, and former owners Ocean Choice did so as well.
Beach Point representatives planned to attend the job fair in Souris Tuesday. The number of foreign workers they’ll have to hire will depend on how successful they are at the fair.
There simply hasn’t been enough local labour to fill the 160-200 positions, Ms Perrot said. This, despite traditional high unemployment in rural PEI.
“People just aren’t applying.”
Donna Herring of Murray Harbour, who worked in fish plants for 40 years, said there are good reasons for that.
“In the community here there are older people, a lot of people who are retired, there doesn’t seem to be any young people interested in working in a factory.”
She said young people want full time jobs with steady hours, not working long hours one day with little or no work the next day if the catch is down - all at minimum wage.
“That’s how a fish plant is.”
That being the case, a fish plant worker has no idea how much they’ll earn in a week.
Work in the plants is also physically demanding and repetitive, Ms Herring said.
“You stand on your feet 8-10 hours per day. It’s hard work ... a lot of young people find it boring.”
According to the Department of Citizenship and Immigration, 237 foreign workers came to PEI to work in fish plants from January to September of last year.
Before employers can bring in foreign workers, they have to file paperwork with the federal government proving they can’t find workers in the area.
Ms Perrot said the company pays foreign workers the same (non-government subsidized) wage as local workers, but they also have to pay foreign workers airfare.
“It’s always good to be employing local people,” she said, but agreed they can’t be employed if they don’t apply.