Alberta's Massive Labor Shortage

Hank C

Electoral Member
Jan 4, 2006
953
0
16
Calgary, AB
http://www.ctv.ca/servlet/ArticleNews/story/CTVNews/20060114/alberta_jobs_060114/20060114?hub=Canada

Alberta companies look eastward to find workers

Companies in Alberta are recruiting workers from the far East Coast to help cope with a labour shortage in the booming Prairie province.

"We heard it's busy, that it's a rockin' place," said Greg Jessome, attending a jobs fair in Halifax.

The Loblaws chain of grocery stores is offering Atlantic Canadians thousands of dollars in moving expenses, paid airfare and a salary of at least $30,000 per year.

"All businesses in Alberta, I think are facing the same challenges," said Phil Roach, the company's recruitment director.

"Whether it's an oil business in the patch or a retailer in the service business, the labour crunch in Alberta is significant."

In Cape Breton, Nova Scotia, the opposite problem exists.

"There's not enough jobs here, and they pay better out there," said Matthew Hill.

Many in the Maritimes see Alberta as the land of opportunity.

With Calgary projected to grow by seven per cent in the coming year, the jobs are certainly there. But the frenetic growth is also driving up the cost of living.

Heather Douglas of the Calgary Chamber of Commerce tried to put a positive spin on it.

"You get a job, and then you can put equity in the bank, and then you can afford to bring your family, and then you can get a mortgage and then you can afford to do some of the other things."

But even with the jobs and the good incomes, many Maritimers find being away from home to be tough.

"It's a hard way to live, it's expensive, it's very cold -- and very lonely for the family person," said Gerald Poirier, who left Cape Breton to work in the oil sands city of Fort McMurray in far northeastern Alberta.

Money alone has been what's keeping him there, he said. "If I could go home tomorrow and work year-round for half of what I make now, I'd be gone in a New York minute."

One irony, however, is that if he did go back home, he'd be leaving a lot of his Cape Breton friends behind in Fort McMurray.

"You land here, and it's kind of unique, because you run into a lot of your friends you grew op with, because we're all chasing the same dream," Poirier said. Before he went back inside, he said: "God bless Alberta!"

The oil sands industry no doubt hopes that Poirier and others like him stay.

Producers would like to hit a target of 2.7 million barrels per day of synthetic crude from the oil sands by 2015.

But there are very real questions about whether there's enough skilled welders, pipefitters and electricians available to build the plants to make that happen.
 

Semperfi_dani

Electoral Member
Nov 1, 2005
482
0
16
Edmonton
RE: Alberta's Massive Lab

Oh god..just what we need...more freaking Maritimers. Hahaha. Just kidding.

And yet with all these so called jobs available, we still have an unemployment rate that is only just below the national average. Especially among willing workers. So perhaps the gov't should consider investing into retraining the willing workers in Alberta more agressively.

But yah, i know jobs are good. In any other part of Canada, the luxery well paying job would be an office type job..out here, its totally the trades.
 

Semperfi_dani

Electoral Member
Nov 1, 2005
482
0
16
Edmonton
RE: Alberta's Massive Lab

And the other problem is that its really becoming the employee calling the shots. I know a guy who is a welder..and they can't hire enough people for the demand. So they are getting workers from the east. The problem they face thought is that workers are getting lazy and less productive and calling in a lot..because they can. They are so short staffed that unless youcommit something heinous, they will still keep you on.
 

Semperfi_dani

Electoral Member
Nov 1, 2005
482
0
16
Edmonton
RE: Alberta's Massive Lab

One more thing though...with everything skyrocketing (job, prices of thing, etc), i just fear that people are becoming to arrogant, and when the bottom falls out, people will crash hard. And they project Oil to go up to as high as 100 dollars this year...oyvay. I tell ya, i just can't shake the feeling that the other shoe will drop one day..and that the lower middle class will gradually shift to the poor class.
 

missile

House Member
Dec 1, 2004
4,846
17
38
Saint John N.B.
i can see this happening-a massive job retraining program and thousands of new pipe fitters,electricians,welders, and plumbers in the workforce, and then the industries peter out . Here now,all the trades are short the numbers needed to keep our own industries up and running.
 

animator

New Member
Dec 27, 2005
36
0
6
Re: RE: Alberta's Massive Lab

Semperfi_dani said:
And the other problem is that its really becoming the employee calling the shots. I know a guy who is a welder..and they can't hire enough people for the demand. So they are getting workers from the east. The problem they face thought is that workers are getting lazy and less productive and calling in a lot..because they can. They are so short staffed that unless youcommit something heinous, they will still keep you on.

I'm hearing the same thing. I have a friend who is a journeyman carpenter and he shows up when he feels like it but they don't fire him because there is such a shortage of people who do what he does.
 

Said1

Hubba Hubba
Apr 18, 2005
5,336
66
48
51
Das Kapital
Re: RE: Alberta's Massive Lab

Semperfi_dani said:
But yah, i know jobs are good. In any other part of Canada, the luxery well paying job would be an office type job..out here, its totally the trades.

That reminds me of my years growing up in Calgary. No one's father worked in an office, they all worked the "rigs" or drove trucks and other heavy equipment (not all, butyou know what i mean).

When I moved back to Ottawa, I noticed a certain stigma attached to "blue collar" type work. Everyone workes for the government. :D
 

the caracal kid

the clan of the claw
Nov 28, 2005
1,947
2
38
www.kdm.ca
Re: RE: Alberta's Massive Lab

animator said:
Semperfi_dani said:
And the other problem is that its really becoming the employee calling the shots. I know a guy who is a welder..and they can't hire enough people for the demand. So they are getting workers from the east. The problem they face thought is that workers are getting lazy and less productive and calling in a lot..because they can. They are so short staffed that unless youcommit something heinous, they will still keep you on.

I'm hearing the same thing. I have a friend who is a journeyman carpenter and he shows up when he feels like it but they don't fire him because there is such a shortage of people who do what he does.

this in part explains why a HR person i know from alberta told me her company does not like hiring albertans. She said the people that move to alberta are hard working but albertans are the laziest bunch and the worst to have working for you.
 

animator

New Member
Dec 27, 2005
36
0
6
Re: RE: Alberta's Massive Lab

Said1 said:
Semperfi_dani said:
But yah, i know jobs are good. In any other part of Canada, the luxery well paying job would be an office type job..out here, its totally the trades.

That reminds me of my years growing up in Calgary. No one's father worked in an office, they all worked the "rigs" or drove trucks and other heavy equipment (not all, butyou know what i mean).

When I moved back to Ottawa, I noticed a certain stigma attached to "blue collar" type work. Everyone workes for the government. :D

I'm not sure when you were in Calgary but the white collar/blue collar thing is now pretty much split between Calgary and Edmonton with Calgary being the white collar americanized Houston type city and Edmonton is the blue collar feeder city to Fort McMurray and those more blue collar labour jobs.
 

Said1

Hubba Hubba
Apr 18, 2005
5,336
66
48
51
Das Kapital
Re: RE: Alberta's Massive Lab

animator said:
Said1 said:
Semperfi_dani said:
But yah, i know jobs are good. In any other part of Canada, the luxery well paying job would be an office type job..out here, its totally the trades.

That reminds me of my years growing up in Calgary. No one's father worked in an office, they all worked the "rigs" or drove trucks and other heavy equipment (not all, butyou know what i mean).

When I moved back to Ottawa, I noticed a certain stigma attached to "blue collar" type work. Everyone workes for the government. :D

I'm not sure when you were in Calgary but the white collar/blue collar thing is now pretty much split between Calgary and Edmonton with Calgary being the white collar americanized Houston type city and Edmonton is the blue collar feeder city to Fort McMurray and those more blue collar labour jobs.

Not that I'm under the impression that things never change, but that's interesting news.

I was out there from 75-87.
 

animator

New Member
Dec 27, 2005
36
0
6
Re: RE: Alberta's Massive Lab

the caracal kid said:
this in part explains why a HR person i know from alberta told me her company does not like hiring albertans. She said the people that move to alberta are hard working but albertans are the laziest bunch and the worst to have working for you.

There are lots of Newfies in labour positions here but I don't think Albertans are lazy. Why would Alberta be so rich if the people are lazy? It doesn't really matter where people come from, the fact is that within about a year they learn that the ball is in their court because of the skilled labour shortage (which is all over the news), and everyone learns that they can cut work fairly often and not lose their job. Construction is booming, housing prices have pretty much doubled in the last 3 years and the mayor wants the city to just keep sprawling into the prairie and farm land. Untrained workers are hired just to try to keep construction jobs on schedule. I think that if an Albertan wanted the job, it would be foolish not to hire them, given the shortage.
 

Hank C

Electoral Member
Jan 4, 2006
953
0
16
Calgary, AB
That reminds me of my years growing up in Calgary. No one's father worked in an office, they all worked the "rigs" or drove trucks and other heavy equipment (not all, butyou know what i mean).

When I moved back to Ottawa, I noticed a certain stigma attached to "blue collar" type work. Everyone workes for the government.

yep..in most parts of Canada and even in the US people have that certain stigma attatched to labor/trades "blue collar" work....however here in Alberta the amount of money you can make in the trades is huge. I have a son who was working up on the rigs with his friends and he loves it.....you can earn $30 an hour as a janitor or painting pipes!!! Although living expenses are quite expensive up there he has a bunch of his friends who all share an place so he does not mind it......his only complaint was that its hard to chase girls up there :wink:
 

animator

New Member
Dec 27, 2005
36
0
6
Re: RE: Alberta's Massive Lab

Said1 said:
animator said:
I'm not sure when you were in Calgary but the white collar/blue collar thing is now pretty much split between Calgary and Edmonton with Calgary being the white collar americanized Houston type city and Edmonton is the blue collar feeder city to Fort McMurray and those more blue collar labour jobs.

Not that I'm under the impression that things never change, but that's interesting news.

I was out there from 75-87.

I think Alberta was like that even back then ... I mean the Edmonton Calgary split. But hey, Calgary and Edmonton are rivals so I'm bound to say something like that. The oil boom of the late 70's is when I would say things became a little more defined since Calgary is the white collar oil management town.
 

Hank C

Electoral Member
Jan 4, 2006
953
0
16
Calgary, AB
The New Ontario: Corridor Of Power

IN THE 1800s aboriginals called it the Wolf ’s Track, and you’d have been hard-pressed to find anyone on it. Today the Edmonton-Calgary corridor is one of the fastest-growing regions in the world and boasts a population of nearly 2.5 million souls, more than Manitoba and Saskatchewan combined. Every day 50,000 vehicles use the four-lane divided thoroughfare known as Highway 2. Once flanked by vast prairie expanses that on a clear day still offer scenic glimpses of the Rocky Mountains, the corridor now sports jarring colonies of constant residential development and classic nowhere architecture.

Dubbed the “Western Tiger” by the TD Bank Financial Group, the corridor connects Edmonton, a sprawling metropolis serving the oil sands, to Calgary, a sprawling metropolis answering the continent’s insatiable appetite for natural gas. In between lie more growing concerns such as Red Deer, an agriculture and oilpatch centre dominated by evangelical churches that serves as a trading area for nearly two million people. A land of new subdivisions, sleek SUVs and cellphone-armed engineers and dealmakers, the region’s commercial heart — try $105 billion in related investments — furiously outpaces southern Ontario’s. Its standard of living is actually closer to that of the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg, the wealthiest nation on earth.

It has also developed growing pains. Manure from factory farms around Red Deer threatens local groundwater as well as the sanity of down-winders. Subdivisions are sprawling so quickly over the prairie that oil and gas drillers collide daily with municipal planners and housing developers. So many new cottages have been planned for Sylvan Lake, a poor man’s Muskoka, that the water body won’t be able to handle its projected flotilla of 400 boats. The oilpatch now plans to drill more than 50,000 coal bed methane wells on prime corridor farmland; the region could theoretically end up supporting 12 times that number. In Calgary, concentric rings of monster-sized homes continue to creep toward the foothills so determinedly that the scenic drive to Banff may soon be obliterated. A recent proposal to drill sour-gas wells on the edge of the city immediately placed 250,000 citizens in an “emergency planning zone,” a controversial designation usually found around nuclear power plants.


According to Calgary’s smiling Mayor Dave Bronconnier, whom everyone calls Bronco, “there is no such thing as urban sprawl in Calgary.” The numbers, however, show a city with a vastly expanding waistline. Since 1970 the population has more than doubled. A road network of 2,800 kilometres has become a clogged maze of 12,000. In terms of square kilometres, Calgary now has the same size footprint as New York — but with only one-tenth of the people. “Calgary is a centrifugal force spinning out,” says Bev Sandalack, a local urban designer. In this unrestrained spin, farmland and mountain vistas are disappearing. “It’s unsustainable and unethical” to Sandalack, but in this place, with no immediate natural constraints — such as a great lake — to force greater population density, the end of suburbia is nowhere in sight.
 

animator

New Member
Dec 27, 2005
36
0
6
Hank C said:
The New Ontario: Corridor Of Power
quote]

Do you have a link for that article? I think it accurately describes how I feel and how many people living west of Calgary view this bronco character. He doesn't have any respect for the rural way of life and should not have any say in annexing land surrounding Calgary until he has looked after services within Calgary. Yet, he's like a man with no vision of the future who can't see beyond the money. To him, annexing land means more tax payers, more houses to build, better economy and supposedly this will make him look good. People who live just outside of Calgary are being squished while some people living inside the city are not yet connected to city water and sewage and have roads in such poor condition that if I drive them in the winter (1/4 T truck) I'm in the ditch.

The corridors to Edmonton and Banff are becoming monstrous eyesores and regarding the architecture, it's absolutely true. In several European countries they have something called the Beauty Commission (at least that's how it's referred to) where all new buidlings and houses must pass Beauty Commission approval, thus protecting the visual landscape. Switzerland is a good example of this where houses have similar building materials and styles. This prevents, or reduces, the mess of architectural styles that eventually appear to be an ill thought out sprawl of random individuality.
 

Calberty

Electoral Member
Dec 7, 2005
277
0
16
Hank C said:
The New Ontario: Corridor Of Power

Every day 50,000 vehicles use the four-lane divided thoroughfare known as Highway 2. Once flanked by vast prairie expanses that on a clear day still offer scenic glimpses of the Rocky Mountains, the corridor now sports jarring colonies of constant residential development and classic nowhere architecture.

.

You never could see the mountains along most of the corridor. I also don't like all the development but as for 'nowhere architecture'..according to who? Are you the 'taste' police?

I see the mountains out of our upstairs bedroom. They are visible almost everyday. There is very little air polution between Calgary and the mountains. This has little to do with anything man has done right but the nature of the prevailing winds, low humidity, temperature differentials, etc. Most of the 'haze' you see to the East of the city is not pollution but prairie dust particles refracting the light. Calgary has about the cleanest air in the world for a city its size. Unfortunately its deteriorating and we all need to be vigilant.

(one reason I vote Green)
 

manda

Council Member
Jul 3, 2005
2,007
0
36
swirling in the abyss of nowhere la
If it wasn't for all the conservatives out there, and one person I would prefer have drop off the face of the earth, I would probably move to Alberta and get my student loans paid off. But with that one person there...it just isn't worth the stress that would be caused.
 

Hank C

Electoral Member
Jan 4, 2006
953
0
16
Calgary, AB
manda said:
If it wasn't for all the conservatives out there, and one person I would prefer have drop off the face of the earth, I would probably move to Alberta and get my student loans paid off. But with that one person there...it just isn't worth the stress that would be caused.

hey its a big province....I am sure you will not run into that one person especially if you don't live in their city or town....unless of course you are referring to King Ralph....on second thought you best stay away.
 

OpnSrc

Electoral Member
Feb 17, 2006
109
0
16
Western Canada
www.purevolume.com
RE: Alberta's Massive Lab

My wife and I are planning to move to Alberta in September. I am an Environmental Technician with a background in Water/Wastewater Treatment and Distribution... Should have no problem finding a job there... I have lived in Alberta before and love it... I don't care much for Ontario. It's like fighting for table scraps here.
 

James Thomas

New Member
Jun 15, 2006
2
0
1
HEy just wondering out if anyone out there can point in the right direction to hook up a Job up in Fort Mcmurray oil sands area. Any anyother additional info woul be a great help/ James > New Zealand