Making the link between seasonal jobs and workers in the gaspé

Transcription

1 Making the link between seasonal jobs and workers in the gaspé

2 table OF contents INTRODUCTION 3 Background 4 Employment Background of Gaspésie-Îles-de-la-Madeleine 5 Table 1 - Main Labour Market Indicators, Region: Gaspésie-Îles-de-la-Madeleine 5 Table 2 Breakdown of Primary Sector Industries for Gaspésie and for the province of Quebec 5 Primary Sector Employment in the Gaspésie 6 Agriculture: Crop and Animal Production 6 Hiring Challenges in the Agricultural Sector 7 PARTNERS 8 Community Economic Development and Employability Corporation (CEDEC) 8 Mission 8 Vision 8 Fédération de l Union des producteurs agricole de la Gaspésie-Les Îles (UPA-GÎM) 8 Mission 8 Vision 8 THE PILOT PROJECT process 9 Phase One: Partner Meetings 9 Phase Two: Questionnaire Development 9 Phase Three: Surveying Participants 9 Phase Four: Gathering Results 10 Phase Five: Sorting the Information 10 Phase Six: Pairing 11 Phase Seven: Next Steps 12 REFerences 14 2

3 Introduction Seasonal work opportunities occur in many sectors of industry, from agriculture and fishing to tourism and communications. While many of the jobs provide gainful employment for a short period of time, they do not enable workers to benefit from the stability of permanent, fulltime work in their field. For agricultural producer employers, the difficulty of recruiting reliable and qualified workers or the inability to afford a fulltime resource tends to increase the workload. In other words, the agricultural producer faced with recruitment challenges sees his quality of life diminish, as he has to take on additional business responsibilities during personal and family time. Jobs at the farm are more and more specialized and managing livestock production requires specific knowledge. In fact, the workforce needs are more and more apparent for agricultural producers. Seasonal Work Model will address the needs of seasonal employers and their workers through collaborating with partners to map the part-time and seasonal employment trends across various employment sectors. This initial case addresses the needs of employers and their workforce requirements within the agricultural sector in Gaspésie. CEDEC s broader goal is to refine this model and expand it to encompass the needs of employers and seasonal workers across two or more sectors of industry. In the beginning, the project consisted mainly of exploring the potential of pairing part-time work and seasonal work to create permanent, fulltime work in the agricultural sector, thanks to a collaboration between CEDEC and the Fédération de l Union des producteurs agricoles de la Gaspésie-Les Îles (UPA-GÎM). During the project, the goal evolved from being centred on pairing and producers sharing workers. In fact, other avenues could be explored, including analysing the ongoing training needs to increase the scope of workers skills, accepting interns and the Programme d apprentissage en milieu de travail (PAMT). 3

4 Background In 2014, how can so many Gaspesian farmers be experiencing a lack of workers when the Gaspésie region has one of the highest unemployment rates in Quebec? By their very nature, most agricultural jobs are not competitive in terms of other employment sectors, which target the same category of workers and offer better working conditions (salary, schedule, ambient temperature), such as grocery chains and processing plants. That said, there remain negative perceptions around agricultural jobs. For example, there are jobs that require more specialized skills. Add these points to low income, busy schedules and harsh ambient working conditions and recruiting becomes more complicated. Incidentally, the number of work weeks is often so short that an employee does not have the time to accumulate the number of hours required to collect employment insurance. For example, hay harvesting, berry and vegetable picking, and harvesting maple syrup are essential tasks for agricultural producers, but which only cover a few weeks out of the year. In reviewing the types of seasonal opportunities that need filling, the following questions come to mind. Among these jobs, are there some that require similar skills? Is there a way to combine tasks in order to create a more stable job and a more stable seasonal labour force? Could this challenge be turned into an opportunity? The Fédération de l UPA-GÎM and CEDEC have collaborated in the past on various initiatives with farming entrepreneurs, including the development of public markets and networking events. At one point, the need for seasonal workers became clear: certain interested farmers did not have the human resources available to participate in these new markets. The issue was seen specifically at the Shigawake market. This led to the Fédération de l UPA-GÎM s desire to better understand the portrait of its members labour force needs and CEDEC s want to improve the labour force situation for seasonal employers, increase productivity, create jobs and prosper in a competitive global economy: the first partnership in this Pilot Project was brokered. 4

5 Employment Background of Gaspésie-Îles-de-la-Madeleine Table 1 - Main Labour Market Indicators, Gaspésie-Îles-de-la-Madeleine Region Region: Gaspésie-Îles-de-la-Madaleine Annual Average Population 15+ ('000) Labour force ('000) Employed ('000) Unemployed ('000) Participation rate 54.3% 55.3% 53.2% 54.3% Unemployment rate 14.9% 12.5% 12.9% 13.4% Employment rate 46.2% 48.4% 46.4% 47.0% Table 2 - Breakdown of Primary Sector Industries for Gaspésie and for the province of Quebec Industry Average for Level (thousands) Share of employment Average Annual Growth Region Region Province Region Province Primary sector % 2.2% 0.3% 0.2% Agriculture % 1.4% 1.2% -0.3% Forestry and logging % 0.3% 0.2% 0.0% Fishing, hunting and trapping % 0.0% -0.8% -1.0% Mining % 0.4% 1.0% 1.9% Source: Service Canada, Québec Region Historical estimates based on Statistics Canada's Labour Force Survey The choice to begin with a pilot project in the agricultural sector is due to the fact that the UPA-GÎM was interested in partnering with CEDEC. 5

6 Primary Sector Employment in the Gaspésie Agriculture: Crop and Animal Production According to the Sectoral Outlook report from Service Canada, 80% of the jobs in the regional agricultural industry are in crop and animal production, specifically, horticulture, beef cattle, and dairy farming. There are approximately 275 farms in the Gaspésie-Îles-de-la-Madeleine region. The Gaspésie-Îles-de-la-Madeleine region stretches across a vast territory composed of 800 km of coastline, fashioned by the sea, forest and mountains. Living under the influence of the maritime climate means that the weather varies from one place to the next of this broad region. With snow covering the ground for five to six months a year, there are a variety of employment opportunities, depending on the type of agricultural enterprise. However, these opportunities are often seasonal. Because of the highly seasonal nature of natural-resource development activities, employment in the primary sector fluctuates widely depending on the time of year. At the July peak, it can account for just over 15% of employment, and then dwindle to only 5% during the slowest time of year. Thus, the primary sector provided an annual average of about 3,400 jobs. This does not represent the number of people who worked in this sector, but rather an estimate of the average number of annual jobs that the sector generated through its activities. 1 1 Service Canada Sectoral Outlook

7 Hiring Challenges in the Agricultural Sector Despite a 20% unemployment rate, finding and retaining agricultural workers remains a difficulty in the Gaspésie. Some farmers have complained of an inability to grow their business due to the impossibility of finding workers. In 2013, six Mexicans were brought in to work at Ferme Bourdages Tradition through the Centre d emploi agricole (CEA-GÎM) and the Canadian Temporary Foreign Workers Program. The UPA helped the farm through the process of hiring migrant workers after the employer experienced years of difficulty filling seasonal positions. Is this still a solution to look at for other producers in the region? (Photo from In general, job requirements in an agricultural enterprise include more than just planting, harvesting, picking, and bailing hay. Individuals need to be familiar and able to work with animals, farming equipment, and as mechanics, among possessing other skills. Some of the work requires particular training; however, once a worker is trained for a particular task, he or she is able to access fulltime work elsewhere. While good for the worker, this can leave an employer back at the starting gate: in need of a seasonal worker. The advantages for the worker are employment stability through fulltime work, and an increase in skills. This enables the employer to access a skilled workforce, increase their quality of life, decrease their stress levels and capitalize on the experience gained by the worker in other companies. 7

8 Partners Community Economic Development and Employability Corporation (CEDEC) Mission A volunteer-driven organization, CEDEC sparks economic innovation in building forward-looking, prosperous and confident communities across Quebec through sharing expertise, knowledge and building partnerships. Vision CEDEC is a leading partner and driving force for community economic development and employability. Fédération de l Union des producteurs agricoles de la Gaspésie-Les Îles (UPA-GÎM) Mission Promote, defend, and develop the professional, economic, social, and morale interests of the agricultural and forestry producers of Québec, without distinction of race, nationality, sex, language or beliefs Vision The power to feed ourselves from the agriculture produced by a multitude of farms rooted in all regions, providing people healthy food produced from a perspective of equitable and sustainable development. 8

9 THE PILOT PROJECT PROCESS Discussions around challenges in hiring agricultural workers were underway between CEDEC and the UPA while preparing for the launch of several public markets involving Gaspesian agricultural producers. The lack of human resources was identified and the two organizations sat down to assess the agricultural labour force situation in the Gaspésie. It was agreed upon that the two organizations would work on a pilot project, and so the Seasonal Workers Needs Assessment Pilot Project was born. This report details the beginning of the pilot project. Note that the pilot is still underway in the fiscal year. Phase One: Partner Meetings The UPA-GÎM has a partnership with Emploi-Québec, which saw the creation of an organization known as the Centre d emploi agricole (CEA-GÎM) that can offer its services. The CEA-GÎM has a lead person, whose primary mandate consists of offering employment support services to companies currently recruiting that want to find workers or receive human resource management services. CEDEC met with this lead to identify the latest documentation surrounding the labour force portrait in relation to agricultural demands. Once all relevant research papers and reports had been reviewed, a questionnaire was drafted to seek more information surrounding the actual and ideal (optimal) human resource needs of agricultural business owners. The goal of collecting ideal or optimal information was for the two organizations to gain a better understanding of the needs, be they feasible or not, of a given agricultural producer. Phase Two: Questionnaire Development CEDEC and the UPA-GÎM worked with an agricultural producer to ensure the questions were relevant. Input from the target audience ensured that consideration was given to the language used, the length of the questions, and to how the questions were framed. The initial questionnaire was drafted, approved and translated in consultation with both partners. Phase Three: Surveying Participants The UPA-GÎM is in a unique position as it possesses a list of producers, which enables it to send them electronic newsletters and monthly news, such as Le Terroir, featured on the right. The first step in the distribution process was to get the questionnaire out to the public. Some 155 questionnaires were sent out mid-december 2013 within the UPA-GÎM s Holiday Season newsletter. The instructions were to return completed questionnaires to the local UPA office. In early January 2013, six questionnaires were in hand. The CEA-GÎM lead followed up by telephone with the producers that were deemed to have a greater need for workers. Seventy-five farms were chosen for follow up. CEDEC performed follow-ups with English-speaking farmers, while the CEA-GÎM followed up with Frenchspeaking farmers. Within a couple of weeks, over 50 participants had responded to the questionnaire. Many did so with the assistance of the CEA or CEDEC resource person over the telephone. 9

10 Phase Four: Gathering Results The goal of this questionnaire was to determine producers labour force needs, so that, if possible, jobs could be paired between producers and thereby transformed into fulltime work for employees and individuals managing part-time, seasonal contracts. The questions were designed to gather real and ideal or optimal data. The real data paints a portrait of the current situation for a given agricultural producer: the number of employees, the hours they work, and so on. The goal of collecting the ideal or optimal data was in an attempt to better understand what an employer s workforce might look like under ideal conditions: if an employer had the resources to hire someone else or could find someone with the right qualifications. The ability to map out those opportunities, including the ideal time of year for a particular producer to hire an extra worker, will lead to a clearer overview of the specific labour force needs of that producer. When speaking with the farmers, it was important to let them know that the personal information they were providing would be confidential. Phase Five: Sorting the Information Based on the results collected, the questionnaire revealed the different real and ideal jobs available on a particular farm. This information was entered into a Microsoft Excel document by the CEA-GÎM lead. \ The example enables positions to be easily seen. Column A shows the district in which the agricultural business is located. Column B shows the municipality where the agricultural business is located. It was important to place the farms in a geographical order. Column C shows the name of the business. The red triangle in the upper right-hand corner of the box is a comment box. By hovering the mouse over the comment box, a dialogue box will open up with information in it concerning that farm s answers to the survey questions (difficulty in hiring, for which positions, civic address, phone number). 10

11 Column D shows the job title. This column can be sorted by real job types, while maintaining calendar and municipal associations. This allows for an easier ability to sort and pair by job types that are similar and geographically close to each other. There were various job titles for which similar roles can be selected when sorting. For example, a farm hand can take on various names depending on the title chosen by the employer. In this case, a labourer, a picker, an farm help, and an farm labourer are all very similar job postings. An example of sorting that used these criteria is shown on the next page. Column E shows the number of jobs available related to that job title. Columns F AC show the months divided into halves. A job can start at the beginning of one month and finish at the end of another. For example, a -labourer working at Agricultural Business A starts in mid-may and works until mid-july. The purple timelines represent the real situation of the farm, while the green timeline represents the ideal situation. A dotted purple or green band means that it is a part-time position. This system enables the pairing of jobs between two businesses located near each other or located in a nearby MRC. For example, at first glance, Agricultural Business A could be paired with Agricultural Business B, both of which are located in the municipality of Matapédia. Any greater distance would risk making the pairing complicated for the worker and less attractive. Although, these criteria can be changed to reflect the region s geographical realities. Phase Six: Pairing Once it appeared that some potential matches could be made, the next step, in this case for the UPA-GÎM, was to plan to make contact with the agricultural businesses in question. Two examples can be seen in the chart below. The yellow arrows show a potential match for an ouvrier agricole/ farm labourer position at two neighbouring producers, A and B. Here the blue arrows show the potential of workforce pairing, for an administrative technician position between businesses B and C. 11

12 Work began by reviewing the actual questionnaire results in the comment bubble from Column C to see if these positions were being filled on a regular basis. If there are indications of difficulty in filling a position, then the CEA-GÎM will study the situation more closely. It is at this point that a meeting should be scheduled to have both agricultural producers sit at the table with the UPA-GÎM. During this meeting the job calendar can be presented, and the job positions can be discussed. From this point in the process, it is now up to the producers to act upon the information provided. CEDEC will support and follow the work being done by the UPA-GÎM and its CEA-GÎM on linking these two agricultural businesses and Emploi-Québec or another service provider whose role it is to help fill labour market needs. This pairing system will help make the work more enticing to a potential job seeker as the work period has been extended. Due to the fact that this information was gathered from producers by telephone during the busy spring 2014 production season, follow-up with identified producers about potential pairings was postponed by the CEA-GÎM until late fall 2014, to correspond with the end of the production season. Among these jobs, are there some that require similar skills? Is there a way to combine tasks in order to create a more stable job and a more stable seasonal labour force? Could this challenge be turned into an opportunity? The Fédération de l UPA-GÎM and CEDEC have collaborated in the past on various initiatives with farming entrepreneurs, including the development of public markets and networking events. At one point, the need for seasonal workers became clear: certain interested farmers did not have the human resources available to participate in these new markets. The issue was seen specifically at the Shigawake market. This led to the Fédération de l UPA-GÎM s desire to better understand the portrait of its members labour force needs and CEDEC s want to improve the labour force situation for seasonal employers, increase productivity, create jobs and prosper in a competitive global economy: the first partnership in this Pilot Project was brokered. Phase Seven: Next Steps CEDEC and the UPA-GÎM will continue to collaborate on the pilot project in the Gaspé; this will entail outreach to other sectors of industry in the Gaspé, assessing the needs using or adapting the tools developed together, and working with stakeholders and partners to support pairings within sectors and across sectors of this region As the UPA-GÎM is directly associated with the Fédération des producteurs forestiers du Québec, there was an opportunity to look at introducing an adapted version of the 12

13 questionnaire in the Gaspésie forestry sector. Plans were made to book a meeting with these stakeholders to explore conducting a needs assessment. The information collected will be similar in nature, and the completed charts and summaries will likely show opportunities for potential pairings of seasonal jobs between the two sectors; these opportunities will be followed up on by the UPA-GÎM and the forestry sector partners respectively to review the presence of transferable or matching skills and other key details. This pilot project process, begun in the Gaspé, is ongoing as CEDEC explores working with the forestry sector, and a third industry, to complete needs assessments. This will enable CEDEC, the UPA-GÎM and future partners and stakeholders to proceed to identifying increased potential to complete seasonal job pairings across several industry sectors. Once completed, this process will potentially lead to the inclusion of other sectors of industry with seasonal labour force needs in the Gaspésie, such as the fisheries, mining and tourism sectors. In turn, the process will lead to outreach to other interested stakeholders in other regions of Quebec. 13

14 References CEDEC, CEDEC and the Fédération de l Union des producteurs agricoles de la Gaspésie-Les Îles collaborate to create sustainable employment for seasonal workers, [online], [ cedec-upa-collaborate-to-create-sustainable-employment-for-seasonal-workers/] (June 30, 2014) COMITÉ SECTORIEL DE LA MAIN-D ŒUVRE DE LA PRODUCTION AGRICOLE. Agricarrières, Portrait du marché du travail du secteur de la production agricole Région de la Gaspésie- Îles-de-la-Madeleine, [Online], [ (June 30, 2014) LA FERME BOURDAGES TRADITION. La Fermes Bourdages Tradition, [En ligne], [ fermebourdages.com/] (June 30, 2014) MAPAQ-DIRECTION RÉGIONALE DU BAS-SAINT-LAURENT, Cadre de référence pour la mise en place et le développement des CUMA et des CUMO. Volume 2. L avantage impression. 20 p. SERVICE CANADA, Perspectives sectorielles , [En ligne], [ lmi/publications/sectoral-outlooks/ /gaspesie-en.shtml] (June 30, 2014). 14

15 CEDEC Mission A volunteer-driven organization, CEDEC sparks economic innovation in building forward-looking, prosperous and confident communities across Quebec through sharing expertise, knowledge and building partnerships. Contact us 1493 Route 138 P.O. Box Huntingdon QC J0S 1H0 FIND CEDEC AT: Y