Some employers in Canada are dealing with long delays in bringing in temporary foreign workers, especially in the agricultural sector.

The federal government says the volume of applications for foreign workers is up almost 25 per cent over last year - forcing some businesses to wait 100 days or more for approval to bring them into the country.

Temporary foreign workers are particularly important to vegetable producers and other horticultural operators here in southern Manitoba, who say they can’t find enough help locally.

Herb Franz, HR Manager for Winkler based Kroeker Farms, says their experience in bringing workers into the country has gone quite smooth.

"We've had some very timely responses from Service Canada in terms of approving our paper work for temporary foreign workers. We've had very good results this year, but we have heard that other places have not had the kind of success that we've had."

Carman based Vanderveen's Greenhouse has also experienced very few problems this year bringing 24 seasonal workers to help with operations there.

Kelvin Vanderveen says that wasn't the case last year.

"2018 was quite different story. We had some workers coming in four to six weeks after we needed them, which put us behind in our planting, but 2019 was okay. We got all our workers on time."

For those businesses that are being impacted by delays in migrant worker appovals, Employment and Social Development Canada says it is taking steps to address the situation. A recent investment of $3.4 million is being used to hire more employees dedicated to processing applications.