2007-05-08
The Guardian
A3
Charlettetown
Anyone looking for a summer job should head to Ocean Choice in Souris as soon as possible because the 80 foreign workers who were supposed to arrive in Prince Edward Island in time for the opening of the lobster season have not come.
This has created a huge number of vacancies on the lobster production line and the red tape that is holding up workers recruited from northern India and Russia is showing no signs of clearing soon.
The contracts of all the foreign workers were slated to begin May 1 and last for eight months.
"The lobsters are coming ashore, but we don't have the workers we need to operate at full capacity," said company president Blaine Sullivan.
"We're all snagged up in bureaucratic red tape. We don't know how many foreign workers may eventually be cleared or whether they'll be cleared at all before the season is over. And we desperately need more workers to fill the jobs we have open."
This spring, Ocean Choice undertook a six-week Atlantic Canada radio and newspaper recruitment which brought good response but the hirings were based on the assumption that the foreign workers would arrive as scheduled.
Labourers in fish and seafood processing
Iba pang mga Lalawigan
Ingles