With serious workplace issues hitting once booming international economies, workplace chaplaincy provider Marketplace Chaplains is extending employee care in China, Canada, Mexico and other international business locations.

According to a recent story in The Atlantic Magazine⁺, on stealth trends which rule the world today by Noah Smith, the Chinese working-age population trend has fallen by 3.45 million people in 2012, which could harm their supply of cheap labor and their robust economies. In addition, the article stated that as a result of these labor changes, this would also put pressure on China’s industries to move up the value chain very quickly.

Marketplace Chaplains Chairman and CEO Gil A. Stricklin and Asia Pacific Director Kelvin Wong, recently left for another three-week visit to the Far East for the purpose of expanding the unique employee care services to companies and their employees in Korea and China.  “This is our third company trip to the Far East over the last year, and we have found many opportunities and receptive business leaders during these visits. While there is great growth and great companies in this part of the world, there are also great needs, which have been expressed by many of the innovative CEOs that we have met in China and Korea,” Stricklin said.  Issues associated with retention in labor force, employee productivity, workplace accident prevention and safety, and the like are common employee care issues Marketplace Chaplains has been addressing and experiencing success with corporations since 1984.

During this time of expansion in China and Korea, Marketplace President and COO Richard S. De Witt led two meetings in Ontario, Canada, with All Weather Windows CEO Gord Wiebe, whose company was voted as one of Canada’s Top 50 Best Managed Companies, on the growing trend of workplace chaplains in Canada.

Steve Troyer, CEO of Troyer Industries in Fort St. John, BC in Canada, said he was glad to help introduce the international service to his own companies and many others he knows locally and nationwide.  “Even though I care for my people, as the boss, people will not always come to me with problems. I’m glad to provide this service internationally, because no matter what company, what country, or what industry, people have problems and chaplains are there to help them,” added Troyer.

De Witt spent more than 30 years in the institutional frozen food business, selling the product up and down the East Coast of the United States, where he saw firsthand the needs of employees and their families. He said his recent meeting with Canadian business leaders reaffirmed those needs cross every country border.  “These Canadian men and women know all too well that business is tough in whatever country and whatever situation you find yourself in. You need innovative strategies to combat the ongoing problems and struggles and workplace chaplains are succeeding,” said De Witt

Marketplace Chaplains, which was founded in 1984, has also expanded its ground-breaking employee workplace organization to Mexico and Puerto Rico.  “It’s very important work,” said Puerto Rico Area Team Leader Mike Madera. “We are helping hundreds of people.”

Marketplace Chaplains, America’s largest and original workplace chaplaincy organization, provides ethnically diverse male and female chaplains to care for employees on a regular basis in companies all over America, in 4 foreign countries and the commonwealth of Puerto Rico. Currently, more than 2,800 Marketplace Chaplains serve in 3,175 locations, 44 states, 989 U.S. cities, and 25 international cities.