Farmscape for December 12, 2016

The Human Resources and Training Coordinator with Manitoba Pork says workers that have come into Manitoba from other countries to fill positions in the province's pork industry have proved to be valuable employees.
The Manitoba Provincial Nominee Program allows employers to recruit foreign workers without the need for a labor market assessment, one of the requirements of the federal Temporary Foreign Worker Program.
Last month the Manitoba government announced changes to the program intended to improve processing times and fast-track nominations.
Janice Goldsborough, the Human Resources and Training Coordinator with Manitoba Pork, says a lot of our independent pork producers, especially in the more remote areas, have used this program to get workers to fill more of the entry level type positions.

Clip-Janice Goldsborough-Manitoba Pork:
A lot of the provincial nominees bring phenomenal skills with them.
We've had people who come from, for example, the Philippines who are licensed and trained to be veterinarians or veterinary assistants, very high job skills.
They just want the opportunity to come to Canada so the people who are coming definitely come with a good level of skill.
To be eligible they have to be able to meet the English proficiency requirements and they have to have the training and some experience within the industry so they're definitely bringing good skills that are very important to our industry.
Whether it's in the production level or whether it's on the barn level, they're coming in with the skills that are needed so that they're not going to take a long time train.
They're here, they're eager to learn and they're great employees.

Goldsborough says the desire is to hire locally but in areas where there's low unemployment, especially remote areas, it's difficult for pork producers to find workers.
For Farmscape.Ca, I'm Bruce Cochrane.

       *Farmscape is a presentation of Sask Pork and Manitoba Pork