Geofc*um, Vol. 10, Pp. 163-177,1979. Pergamon Press Ltd. Printed in Great Britain. Labour Supply and Resource-based Manufacturing in Isolated Communities: The Experience of Pulp and Paper Mills in North-Central British Columbia ROGER HAYTER,* Burnaby, Canada Abstract: This paper examines determinants of labour sheds for new industrial ventures located in isolated communities and analysescomparatively severalgeographicand socio- economic characteristics of workers hired by pulp and paper mills recently established in no~h~~ntral British Columbia. While resource-based industrial expansions in frontier regions continue to be of the utmost importance to the development plans of many regions across Canada, apart from a few studies (e.g. zyxwvutsrqponmlkjihgfedcbaZYXWVUTSRQPONMLKJIHGFEDCBA kfAcMrL~.dm zyxwvutsrqponmlkjihgfedcbaZYXWVUTSRQPONMLKJIHGFEDCBA et al., 1974; STAVELEY, 1973) there is surprisingly little knowledge concerning the flow of labour to new resource ventures. However, as governments have actively promoted expansion of resource utilization into increasingly isolated areas, there has been growing awareness of the com- plexities and social implications of manpower planning underlying industrial developments in isolated regions. To illustrate the dimensions of labour supply problems in frontier econ- omies, this paper focuses upon the experiences of new pulp and paper mills established in north-central British Columbia during the 1970s. The economic development of north-central British Columbia has occurred largely since the early 1960s and mainly on the basis of the exploitation and export of natural resources and primary manufactures, notably forest products. The growth of the region has taken place within the context of a rapidly expand- *Simon Fraser University. ing provincial economy and a government committed to diffusing forest product activ- ities throughout the province by the establish- ment of economic infrastructure and appro- priate resource utilization and tenure laws (FARLEY, 1972; HAYTER, 1973: 96-104). Tradition~ly, however, the gove~ment has revealed little concern for manpower planning, the responsibility for which has been left to individual firms, For corporate planners, the question of labour supply for industrial developments in north- central British Columbia has been dominated by the need to import supplies of appropriately skilled labour to compensate for local labour shortages. Furthermore, in many industrial plants voluntary resignations for a variety of climatic, job, urban amenity and personal reasons have cont~buted to high employee turnover rates which have required firms to attract continuing streams of workers. It is true to some extent that high turnover has allowed firms to adjust to changes in demand while, socially, a degree of turnover is generally considered beneficial for economic efficiency by facilitating movement of labour from stagnating industries and regions to growing ones. In the context of small isolated com- 163