Slow job growth has little to do with oil sector

Oil is now US$70 a barrel — bad news for those paying $1.27 a litre at the pumps, but good news for an oil-producing province like Saskatchewan emerging from job stagnation.

Or at least, you’d think that would be the case.

Notwithstanding a steady rise in the price of oil, Saskatchewan’s labour market remains flat in 2018.

The April numbers from Statistics Canada showed a 0.3 per cent (1,800 jobs) decline year-over-year. Coincidentally, that matches the year-over-year decline of 0.3 per cent for the first four months of 2018 compared with the same period 2017.

That included a 0.5-percent reduction in the parttime work in April, meaning the province’s workforce and economy is moving from full-time jobs to part time to layoffs.

With public sector jobs increasing, the losses in April were clearly concentrated in the private sector, which saw a one per cent decline. Among the hardest-hit areas were retail and wholesale trade (down four per cent in April, year-over year), information, culture and recreation (down seven per cent) and professional and technical services (down 20 per cent).

And while the Saskatchewan Party remains oblivious to the job problem, jobs are down everywhere in the province, not just in the oilpatch.

Five of the seven regions in Saskatchewan experienced declines in April, including a nasty 11.2 per cent decline in the Yorkton-Melville area, a 2.3 per cent decline in the north and even a two per cent decline in Saskatoon, showing that even the growing cities are no longer immune from the province’s recent employment woes.

However, the real problem with Saskatchewan’s job story is that it is no longer following established trends we’re used to seeing.

First, the penchant of Saskatchewan and its resourcebased economy to resemble at least regional employment patterns is no longer apparent. Consider the April numbers elsewhere that showed an employment increase of two per cent in Alberta, 0.9 per cent in B.C. and Manitoba and 1.87 per cent nationally.

Second, the long-standing Saskatchewan problem of our young people simply moving to the Alberta oilfields to find employment is no longer in play — at least, not in the way it once was.

Both the number of Saskatchewan people looking for work and the province’s unemployment rate are on the rise, as is the number of people who have quit looking for jobs.

What’s happening with Saskatchewan’s static job numbers isn’t happening elsewhere. It may tell us why our oil-based economy is going nowhere.

“It’s not the oilpatch or pipelines or various other sundry things we (the government) have been blaming,” said statistician Doug Elliott of Sask Trends Monitor.

Comparing 2015 numbers with 2018, Saskatchewan has lost 7,700 jobs but only about 1,000 are in the oilpatch, Elliott noted, adding such a decline in the oil and mining sector isn’t really enough to affect other jobs.

More puzzling to Elliott is why we are not even seeing job recovery in the oilfield.

“That’s a good question. I don’t have the answer to that,” the province’s predominant statistician said. “Maybe (to a small extent) the environmentalists are right. We are certainly using oil, but (as an economic driver) it’s not the factor it used to be.”

While Premier Scott Moe’s dual campaigns against resistance to the Trans Mountain pipeline and the yet-to-beimplemented carbon tax imply that eliminating both are key to Saskatchewan’s recovery, Elliott wonders if the problem with Saskatchewan job stagnation is about something else.

Of course, the NDP Opposition was quick to blame the Sask. Party government strategy.

“Other provinces are choosing to make smart investments in people that drive economic growth, but the Sask. Party is underfunding and cutting things like health care, education and supports for the vulnerable,” NDP MLA Vicki Mowat said in a news release. “With growing unemployment and fewer people working, these numbers should be a wakeup call for the Sask. Party to change course.”

Whether any government strategy can turn things around is debatable, but one thing seems clear: Saskatchewan can’t just rely on oil.