The manufacturing sector in the Pembina Valley remains solid despite the pandemic and a Morden company is an example of that dynamism.

Cross Country Manufacturing, a maker of semi-trailers, is planning to expand its employee team as orders for its products increase and as the company launches a new live bottom trailer line.

The company is currently looking to hire welders, painters, and labourers to keep up with anticipated demand.

Cross Country Manufacturing is considering a possible expansion of its facility as it begins rolling out its new live bottom trailer product line. Company CFO Sam Cochrane says their new live bottom trailer will drive a lot of that expansion. Cross Country is the only company that both designs and manufactures a live bottom trailer in Western Canada.

"We're in the middle of building the first ones as we speak and it should be ready sometime in May and then we'll continue to ramp up into full production where we're producing a couple of those a week sometime in the next year. So, we're looking to hire some additional staff to help with that growth and we think that having it designed and built right here in southern Manitoba makes it a great news story and we're proud of it."

A typical live-bottom trailer has a conveyor belt on the bottom of the trailer tub that pushes material out of the back of the trailer at a controlled pace. Unlike the conventional dump truck, the tub does not have to be raised to deposit the materials which immediately improves safety since there is little risk of rolling over. The trailer can also be unloaded just about anywhere, even on uneven terrain.

"We see a growing demand for this kind of trailer in Canada and all of North America really," says Cochrane. "Ontario was an early adopter and we're now seeing that grow nationwide and in the U.S."

Cochrane expects Cross Country will likely need to hire 20 to 30 workers as it ramps up production over the next year. Many of those jobs would be skilled labour such as welders and painters.

Finding workers with those skill sets can be a challenge in a region that boasts a dynamic manufacturing sector, a very low unemployment rate and has a huge need for skilled workers such as welders, but Cochrane says they're up to the challenge.

"The design of this new trailer is enabling us to get creative because it's a repeatable system that we can make it in and therefore opens up our ability to bring in welders with less experience, right out of schools that are training welders, so that we can get them up and running in a production type of environment with less experience than what we used to have. That opens up possibilities for welders that weren't there before."

Cochrane says the demand for welders is a great sign for the region which is why they are talking with other manufacturers in the area about working together to attract more skilled labour to the area from other parts of the province or the country.

"As things grow, we expect it will probably necessitate an expansion to our plant as well. We're in talks with a couple of local construction companies on what that might look like. We plan to use local vendors for that project, if and when it comes to fruition. Nothing guaranteed just yet, but that's the way it looks like it's going to go at this point."

Cross Country Manufacturing, which has been operating in Morden since 2006, provides over 130 types of trailers to the logging, mining, heavy construction and oil and gas industries in North America.