Firm in tiny Sask. town flourishing with Filipino workers
A farm equipment manufacturer in the tiny town of Frontier, Sask., says hiring immigrants from the Philippines has been a key to its success.
In recent years, Honey Bee Manufacturing has filled 35 jobs at it Frontier combine header plant from the Philippines — just under 20 per cent of its workforce.
Among those immigrants is Esteban de La Cruz, who moved to community in the southwest corner of the Prairie province with his family in 2008 and now works (along with wife Elvie) at Honey Bee.
New arrivals from the country are a regular feature in Frontier, and De La Cruz says he likes to personally welcome them with a party that includes food, drink and karaoke.
"Those Filipinos who have just arrived are well adjusted because they can see already some Filipinos, which is different than when I first came to Frontier," he said.
"It's nice to live here, especially if your kids are young. It is very quiet and very peaceful. Almost all people know each other and people greet you with a smile. You don't worry about your kids getting hurt."
The drive to bring in employees from the Philippines have been underway since 2008.
According the company's human resources manager, Henry Fehr, Honey Bee needed engineers, welders and assembly line workers but just couldn't find enough of them in Western Canada.
"What happened for us is, when [Canadian workers] find out where we are, they just won't come," he said. "We're 100 miles from the nearest traffic light, 100 miles from the nearest Wal-mart, 100 miles from the nearest Tim Horton's."
Honey Bee uses the Saskatchewan Immigrant Nominee Program to bring over workers.
Fehr said it's an eight month process to bring families to Frontier. When they arrive, they are of landed immigrant status, and can therefore begin the process of becoming Canadian citizens.
Often, there's some culture shock for workers are arriving from half-way around the world.
"When you go to an airport and you meet a mother, a father and say three children and they've got three suitcases, for their entire life - that's a unique challenge," Fehr said.
"We help them establish a new life. We give them furniture. We help to get vehicles, for example; we do all those sorts of things."
Honey Bee also rents out any open apartments or duplexes in Frontier so that Filipino families have a place to stay, and they do pay the first few months of rent.
The company has taken some risks to maintain the workforce it needs, but hiring from the Philippines has paid off, according to general manager Brad Nelson.
Today, Honey Bee is a market leader in combine headers and their products are sold all over the world. "I don't know how we would continue to exist today, doing the manufacturing that we're doing, at the level we're doing it all, without them," Nelson said. "I don't think we could, quite frankly."
