Cooke nets government help to create 100 jobs in Canada

Family-owned Cooke, which farms salmon in Canada, Chile and the United States, and Shetland and Orkney in Scotland, will create the jobs over the next five years, it has announced.

Cooke currently has more than 1,300 employees at various locations in the province. The new jobs are expected to be marine site workers, technicians and managers, logistics experts and truck drivers.

Twenty-five of the new positions will be created at the company’s office in Saint John, while the remaining 75 will be spread across Cooke Aquaculture’s head office in Blacks Harbour, and at operations in St George and Grand Manan.

“It is a tribute to the success of our recent acquisitions that we are able to continue to create new jobs here in New Brunswick,” said Glenn Cooke, the company’s chief executive, in a press release.

‘Outstanding partners’

“Opportunities NB and the Government of New Brunswick remain outstanding partners for us as we continue to grow. These new employees are needed to help us reach our latest growth targets and we are very pleased to be able to add so many of them as part of our operations in rural New Brunswick.”

Cooke is eligible for an investment of up to 1.9 million Canadian dollars from Opportunities NB. Up to $990,000 of this funding will be in the form of payroll rebates, which are only disbursed to a company once it has created and maintained the jobs for one year and provided proof of salary levels and employment.

Opportunities NB will also invest $810,000 in the form of a loan, and a $100,000 non-repayable contribution, both of which are to be used towards capital improvements to support Cooke’s job growth.

The provincial government estimates that creating up to 100 jobs would contribute $25m in payroll over five years and $80m toward the province’s GDP over that same period.

Cooke employs more than 300 people in Scotland.