The struggle for Saskatchewan businesses to find skilled labour is real. Ask Erwin Klempner.
"We’ve been talking about this for the last five or six years that I’ve been involved in the industry, there are many companies here that turn away work because they don’t have enough skilled labourers," said Klempner, who specializes in human resources and workforce development with the Saskatchewan Construction Association (SCA).
The SCA is attempting to ease the burden by taking recruitment overseas, to Ireland and Poland specifically.
Eight companies are going on the trip, which will take place March 21-29 and include stops in Dublin, Cork and Warsaw.
Each company requires seven or eight workers, Klempner said.
Heavy equipment operators and heavy-duty equipment mechanics, in particular, are in great demand.
As well, with modern architecture incorporating much more glass, the need for glaziers has been increasing, Klempner said.
"Glaziers have become a very hot commodity," he said.
Corey Hunchak can attest to that.
Hunchak, owner of Clearlite Glass in Saskatoon, was part of the delegation when the SCA made its first overseas trip to Ireland in October 2013.
Klempner said 25 to 30 workers were signed on during that excursion.
Hunchak accounted for five of them, three of whom are still his employees.
About a year before that, Hunchak had made a trip to Dublin on his own and he eventually inked deals with six workers.
He still has one of them on staff.
"The guys we have brought over have been very good," he said, adding that some of them have 15 to 20 years of experience.
"Some of it doesn’t work out. It’s not for everybody," he added.
The individuals that adapt best are the ones, who intend to start anew in Canada as opposed to those who leave their families behind in their home country and essentially attempt to live a double life, Hunchak said.
It can be challenging, but so can finding mobile workers in the North American market.
It’s not like Hunchak, who has 60 glaziers on his payroll, didn’t try.
He has placed numerous advertisements and travelled to places like Newfoundland, Toronto and a few cities in the United States.
"They’d sooner be unemployed than come to Saskatchewan," he said, adding that the stigma of the Prairies as "have-not provinces" still seems to linger for some people and the idea of long, cold winters doesn’t sit well with others.
"That’s a hard sell sometimes … we’ve tried. We’ve tried a lot," he said.
Klempner said he’s aware of companies that have recruited from Eastern Canada and others who have not had as much success.
"Some (workers) are looking for a change, but not many," he said.
"Most would love to stay where they are but they don’t have the work, so they have to go where the work is."
Part of the appeal of Ireland is the quality of workmanship and good attitudes among the workers, generally speaking, according to Klempner.
"There’s no language barrier whatsoever … the workers just have to learn the terminology. And, there’s also a lot of similarity to their certification, i.e. apprenticeship and journeyperson status, so you can find out what the equivalents are," he said.
Hunchak said the SCA made the process simple.
While in Ireland, he set up a Clearlite booth in a conference centre and candidates streamed through over the course of the day dropping off resumes and chatting with him.
"It’s well worth the money to do it this way. They’re advertising over there. They’re generating the interest," he said of the Saskatchewan Construction Association.
The late March trip will cost SCA members $5,800 for the job expos, plus travel expenses.
The recruitment tours are done in conjunction with Saskatchewan Immigration through the Department of Economy.
Klempner credited that arm of the government for making things pretty easy.
"All you have to do is go there and worry about interviewing and everything else is looked after, and people come to you," he said.
As for the red tape, the federal Labour Market Opinion process has become cumbersome and expensive, Hunchak said.
He prefers the Saskatchewan Immigrant Nominee Program (SINP).
"The federal government … is making it impossible for companies to go through that (LMO) process," he said.
"The SINP has been wonderful to deal with."
After two years on a work permit, an immigrant employee can apply for permanent residency in Canada.
Hunchak, who won’t be part of the late March trip to Ireland because he has not yet secured work on some key projects, said he’d like to see more homegrown glaziers.
He has been trying to convince technical schools, like NAIT and SAIT, to add more seats to their programs.
"We’re going to need to re-educate guidance counsellors, parents and kids that there’s viable careers in construction, but that doesn’t help us when there’s work pending now," Hunchak said.
"That’s a battle, and that’s something we fight all the time."
The owner of Clearlite Glass, Corey Hunchak, has had trouble finding enough local glaziers for his business. He has made two trips to Ireland to find qualified glaziers, who can work on the company’s commercial projects.
Photo: Derek Neary"
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