On May 2, Stemilt Growers' 12th annual job fair was held in Wenatchee, Washington. A total of 682 people applied for cherry sorting and packing jobs, as Pacific Northwest growers and packers look to hire workers for the 2016 cherry crop. That’s shy of the 750 people Stemilt needs and indicates a tight labor supply, but the company plans to make up the difference in the next few weeks.
Many packers and growers think they’ll get by, but some are more worried than others.
They will be helped by a light crop, believed to be about 19 million 20-pound boxes, which is the same as last year, versus the record 23.2 million of 2014. Harvest will start early again, likely in late May, and finish in August.
“I think we’re getting more and more concerned every year as labor seems to get tighter,” said Ken Bailey, vice president of Orchard View Farms in The Dalles, Ore., that state’s largest cherry grower.
The job fair generated 550 applicants last year, 747 in 2014, 960 in 2013 and a record 1,546 in 2010. A Stemilt spokeswoman at the time credited the turnout to high unemployment during the recession. That was a two-day event at which the opening line wrapped halfway around the convention center.
This was the first year applicants could turn in applications at WorkSource, the local job office of the state Department of Employment Security, bypassing the fair. Some 492 applications had already been received by Wenatchee WorkSource. In time that may replace the fair but Zach Williams, Stemilt’s director of human resources, said the fair is kept to generate interest and applications.
Stemilt needs 1,500 workers for its two cherry packing plants running double shifts at the height of packing. About half of those will be temporarily pulled from apple packing, Williams said. The other half was to come from the fair. If Stemilt gets more than 750 applicants it will hold them in reserve as replacements for what can be high turnover because of the tedious nature of sorting.
The amount of sorting by humans is being reduced by faster, high-tech optical sorting and sizing equipment by many companies.
Orchard View Farms is just finishing installation of a new, high-tech Unitec line. The company has nearly 2,400 acres of cherries. The company needs 450 to 500 pickers and 175 to 180 sorters and packers and starts recruiting in March, Bailey said.
Orchard View had about 40 percent of a normal crop last season due to a November 2014 freeze. It hopes to have a full crop this year with picking estimated to start June 3 or 4 compared with May 29 last year.
Some Yakima companies struggled last year to get enough sorters and packers, and growers are always looking for more pickers, said Tommy Hanses, operations manager at Washington Fruit & Produce Co. in Yakima.
Norm Gutzwiler, a Wenatchee grower, said he thinks there will be a picker shortage on the front end of the crop.
“California will finish ahead of Washington so pickers should move up, but we don’t see as much migrant movement as we use to,” he said.
Despite a nice bloom, no frost and good pollination weather, the crop just didn’t set up well, Gutzwiler said.
“It won’t be a record crop. It will probably be very similar to last year but there should be a lot of nice-size fruit for the market,” he said.
Source: capitalpress.com
