Blue mussels need new muscle

A shortage of workers in P.E.I.'s mussel industry has left Prince Edward Aqua Farms unable to expand into new product lines, and current employees are on extra shifts to keep up with demand.

'Our hands are tied. We don't know what to do.' Gerry Bidgood, Prince Edward Aqua Farms

The Kensington company employs more than 40 people processing blue mussels, and it would like to hire at least another 12. The plant has tried everything to woo workers, general manager Gerry Bidgood told CBC News Thursday, including raising the starting wage to nearly $10 an hour.

"We wanted to get into some new products, and that is on hold until we know we have the nucleus of people to do it. Extremely frustrating. Our hands are tied. We don't know what to do," said Bidgood.

"For the last two months we've put a lot of money into advertising and trying to attract people. We've increased the wage at the plant several times."

Prince Edward Aqua Farms isn't alone. Fish plants across the Island are having difficulty attracting workers, in a province with one of the highest unemployment rates in Canada. Bidgood said he can't understand why he can't get enough workers.

"We have a great deal of difficulty trying to figure that out," he said.

"We look at the statistics and we say, where are these people?"

Westward draw hard to compete with

Doug Cole, who works at Aqua Farms, says a lot of people have headed west. Aqua Farms recently lost a handful of long-term employees who landed work in oil-rich Alberta.

"You can't compete with the wages they're paying out there," said Cole.

"It's quite a bit more than what they would get around this industry, so you can't blame them for going."

Another worker, Sara Dawn-McEwan, said the long hours keep some people away. With the labour shortage current employees take on extra shifts.

"It's rough, and its really rough for parents with young children, which I don't have but there's a lot of people here that do," said Dawn-McEwan.

"It doesn't leave much family time for them."

Current workers are trying to spread the word of job opportunities in the hopes of a little more family time.