Alberta's New Motto: Help Wanted

While economies around the world stagnate or contract, Alberta continues to surge forward. But there’s a much deeper irony: While the U.S. struggles with an unemployment rate approaching the 10-per-cent mark, and European governments slash social programs so they won’t default, Alberta companies can’t find enough skilled workers to staff their needs.

They can’t find work, we can’t find workers.

That was a recurring theme of the Edmonton Ecomomic Development Corporation’s “2012 Economic Outlook” luncheon held Tuesday at the Shaw Conference Centre.

“Here in Alberta, we are on the verge of a worker shortage,” said Alberta Finance Minister Ron Liepert, who sat at a panel discussion with industry and education representatives.

And while Liepert admitted the recent lull in oil prices will see Alberta’s annual deficit come in closer to the $3.4 billion rather than $1.3 billion (the high and low marks predicted in earlier forecasts) and wouldn’t discount discussing a provincial sales tax, the staffing issue was the most worrisome of the economic news.

Jodi Abbott, president of NorQuest College, said she expects Alberta to accumulate 77,000 unfilled jobs by the end of the decade.

“We do not have the population base to meet the expected labour-market demand,” she said.

NorQuest is a leader when it comes to educating immigrants and getting them the certification they need to enter the workforce. But Abbott made it clear that Alberta must make education one of its core industries, talked about in the same breath as oil and agriculture.

Alberta has to be ready to quickly educate a large number of workers so that it doesn't face critical shortages in the future, she said. Unfilled jobs means losses in productivity — and hurt the economy. After all, 77,000 salaries that go unpaid means 77,000 fewer chances for other businesses to benefit from having working people in their communities.

Pierre Gratton, former vice-president of the Mining Association of Canada, said his industry is expected to grow by $140 billion in the coming years — with half of that growth happening in Alberta. Mining is already the largest employer of First Nations in Canada.

“And we’ve only scratched the surface,” he said.

Bretton said his industry is desperate to find workers, from truck drivers to accountants to engineers. “We can’t find people fast enough,” he said.

Liepert said that Alberta has done a good job to make itself more attractive to those professionals whose services are needed here.

“We don’t take a backseat to anyone,” Liepert said, adding that the proposed Royal Alberta Museum project, cast in doubt by a hole in the federal funding of the new building, will certainly get built. He said, “That will go."