Honduras  - IOM Honduras is today helping a group of 31 Honduran labour migrants, selected earlier this year by IOM, in cooperation with the Honduran Government and Maple Leaf Foods, to travel to Canada to begin their two-year contracts with the meat processing company.

The 31 Hondurans (30 men and one woman), will work at the plant in Brandon, Manitoba.  In August, IOM assisted the first group of 109 persons selected in March to travel to Lethbridge, Alberta.

Following a request from Maple Leaf Foods, the IOM missions in Honduras and El Salvador began the initial recruitment by advertising the job opportunities, accepted applications from 7,890 persons (3,000 from Honduras), carried out initial interviews, skills tests and medical exams, confirmed all documents and certificates, and made the pre-selection of candidates.

Maple Leaf representatives travelled to the region to make the final selection to fill the vacancies in their plants in the cities of Brandon, Manitoba and Lethbridge, Alberta.   

The 31 labour migrants travelling today will join 278 Hondurans working in Maple Leaf in Canada.  Another group of 61 persons already selected will travel in the coming weeks. IOM also coordinated 120 hours of English language training and orientation sessions for the workers.

Maple Leaf Foods offers the migrant workers the option of extending their two year contracts and nominates those who have finished the initial two year contracts for the provincial permanent resident visa that allows the workers to bring their spouse and children to Canada.

Juan Ramón Rivera, Officer in Charge of the IOM Mission in Honduras said, “Today is a sad but also a very exciting day for the travelers and their families.  They are looking forward to starting their well-paid jobs and to a brighter future for their families.   During the IOM information sessions, in which the spouses and children participate, we share in the happiness that this labour migration opportunity is bringing to these families.”

The National Statistics Institute of Honduras reports that some 863,000 young persons aged between 12 and 30 are either unemployed or under-employed.  According to the same source, the general unemployment rate rose by 2.1% in May 2012, bringing the total unemployment rate to 51%.

For more information, please contact

Evelyn Andino
IOM Honduras
Tel: +504 2220-1104.
Email: eandino@iom.int