Worker shortage hits consumers

A severe shortage of workers is costing Canada’s farm industry an estimated $1.5 billion a year in lost revenue and is driving up the cost of food for Canadian consumers, anew industry study states.  The study, conducted by the Conference Board of Canada on behalf of the Canadian Agricultural Human Resource Council, found there are currently about 59,000 unfilled farm jobs in Canada. And that number is expected to balloon to 114,000 by 2025, as the demand for food and agriculture-industry workers continues to grow and older workers retire. "What that (worker shortages) does for businesses and for industry is that it really constricts them," human resource council executive director Portia MacDonald-Dewhirst explained in an interview Wednesday. "The businesses aren’t running efficiently, they’re unable to meet their production targets and they’re unable to meet any export opportunities that are presented to them because they don’t have enough bodies to do the work."