Wanted: sewing machine operators

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This article was published 01/03/2016 (3518 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

A local specialty clothing manufacturer can’t find enough experienced sewing machine operators here, so it’s going abroad to find them.

Peerless Garments president Albert El Tassi said new orders are coming in and the Winnipeg company needs at least 20 more experienced sewing machine operators to handle the growing volume of work.

El Tassi said Peerless was able to find 10 new operators in Winnipeg within the last three months, but has since hit the proverbial brick wall. So it now wants to expand its search outside of Canada.

He noted the 72-year-old company was successful in the 1970s and 1980s in recruiting sewing machine operators from as far away as the Philippines, China and South Korea. But this time it would like to try a little closer to home.

“Mexico would be more appropriate than anywhere else. The Philippines and China are so far away. But if it’s not there, then we’ll have to go elsewhere — to China or the Philippines again.”

El Tassi said Peerless hopes the federal and Manitoba governments will lend the company a hand, and he’ll be approaching both within the next week or two.

“I’m sure they will be OK with that. We’re not alone in this predicament. There are other companies here, as well in Toronto and Montreal. There is a lot of need for sewing machine operators.”

Peerless, which is owned by Vancouver-based Unisync Corp., specializes in the production of highly technical protective garments — such as parkas, rainwear, flight suits and camouflage clothing — for the Department of Defence (DND), the RCMP, the Ontario Provincial Police and a number of other federal, provincial and municipal departments.

‘We’re not alone in this predicament. There are other companies here, as well in Toronto and Montreal. There is a lot of need for sewing machine operators’­– Albert El Tassi, president of Peerless Garments, which is looking to hire 20 experienced sewing machine operators

El Tassi and Unisync Corp. CEO Douglas Good said Peerless’s sales had been declining in recent years due to federal budget cuts. And as production declined, the company had to let go some of its sewing machine operators.

But with last fall’s change in government and DND and others having to replace old or worn-out garments, orders have started picking up again in the last few months, they said. Unfortunately, the sewing machine operators it let go have since found work with other local garment factories, such as parka-maker Canada Goose, they said. So they’re no longer available.

El Tassi said he understands many of those factories are also having trouble finding enough experienced sewing machine operators, and he expects they also will be looking to recruit outside the country.

A spokesman for Canada Goose could not be reached Monday for comment.

While Peerless hopes to find some experienced operators in Mexico, El Tassi said it will also continue to search for suitable candidates here. In addition to advertising in the local Filipino community, it will be contacting local immigrant groups to see if any of the recent Syrian immigrants might be interested.

“The mothers would normally know sewing,” he said, although he noted many of them also have young families. So if their children aren’t school-age, they likely won’t be be able to take a job outside of the home, he said.

He noted Peerless has donated space on the second floor of its Notre Dame Avenue factory to a local non-profit group — the Canadian Muslim Women’s Institute — which offers training programs for female newcomers.

“If they become good sewing machine operators we will gladly take them. But everything has to be perfect for the DND and for the RCMP, so we can’t compromise with the quality at all.”

Peerless currently has about 97 employees, including the 10 new ones who were hired within the last few months. At its peak, six or seven years ago, it had about 230 workers.

El Tassi said it’s only looking for another 20 sewing machine operators because that’s all it has room for in the garment-sewing area of its factory. He noted that about 18 months ago, the company started making tents for the DND so it wasn’t so dependent upon garment orders.

He said the company recently won a contract to make 4,125 new tents for DND, and it’s likely going to take about six months to complete that work.

murray.mcneill@freepress.mb.ca