KEY FINDINGS

1. 6/10 say they have been moderately or very impacted by labour challenges in the last 2 years. 2/10 say things have gotten worse with their labour challenges since 2021, and 7/10 say it has stayed the same. The most common impacts are poor work-life balance and high personal stress. 

2. Recruitment is more of a challenge than retention. While 1/3 say it's both finding and keeping employees that's their main challenge, another 1/3 say recruitment is the bigger issue. 24% of Ag Producers and 10% of those in Agribusiness or Agrifood say they have not had any recent problems recruiting or retaining labour. 

3. Root causes of labour shortages are attributed by our panel to multiple factors. The most common factors considered to be root causes of their own labour challenges are
a) a shortage of available skilled labour, (64%), creating
b) difficulty in recruiting and/or retaining employees (53%), due also to
c) high competition in the local area for employees (47%). This root cause was especially endorsed by the Agrifood/Agribusiness group.

21% agreed that fluctuation in commodity demand makes it difficult to predict their labour needs. 

20% agreed that a root cause of labour challenges in their experience is problems related to foreign worker programs. Specifically, they report that response from the program takes too long and the application process is too complex. 

4. Of all the actions taken to help solve their labour challenges, switching from manual to automated process yielded the highest reported rate of improvement . Of the 131 who reported automating 85% said it somewhat or very much improved their labour challenges.