Booming Alberta leads Canada in job creation
There’s a note of desperation creeping into some help-wanted ads posted in Calgary as Statistics Canada reported Friday Alberta continued to have the lowest unemployment rate in the land in 2012.
“Tired of your old framing job and want to be treated right? Give me a call,” says an online job posting by Bonsteel Construction, a three-yearold company that specializes in framing houses.
StatsCan reported Friday that Alberta created 55,500 jobs in 2012 — more than a quarter of all the jobs created in Canada — as the provincial unemployment rate for December came in at 4.5 per cent, the lowest in Canada and down from 4.9 per cent in December 2011.
The tight labour market means workers have the advantage when negotiating terms, says framing company owner Justin Bonsteel, reached at a construction site in Auburn Bay in Calgary’s deep south on Friday
“It’s an ongoing thing. It’s a revolving door, right?” he said, adding he can’t compete with the money being doled out by oilsands construction companies in northern Alberta.
“Everyone wants top dollar. I was running a crew a few years ago and everyone settled for a lot less.
Now everyone wants and everyone knows what they can get, they can get good money.”
In December, the Canadian economy created 40,000 jobs — all of it in full-time work — driving the unemployment rate to 7.1 per cent, its lowest in four years.
In the Calgary area, 27,200 jobs were created in 2012, while 22,200 were added in the Edmonton region.
“These numbers show Alberta continues to be the best place for employment opportunities in Canada,” said Darrell Winwood, a spokesman for Alberta Enterprise and Advanced Education.
Edmonton’s unemployment rate of 4.3 per cent tied Regina for lowest among major Canadian cities. Metro Calgary’s was 4.6 per cent.
Despite the increase, the rate of job growth over the year in Alberta was 1.5 percentage points less than the national rate, said Statistics Canada.
In December, Alberta actually lost 6,100 net jobs, and the unemployment rate increased by 0.3 percentage points from 4.2 per cent in November.
But ATB economist Todd Hirsch said the details show a more positive picture.
“Full-time positions actually roared ahead in December, rising by nearly 18,000,” he said in a report. “That was more than offset by a loss of almost 24,000 part-time jobs. So while the overall number of employees did drop, the quality of the jobs increased — as did the paycheques.”
Winwood added that in many cases people moved from part- to full-time employment.
Most job increases for December were in agriculture, transportation and warehousing, and public administration.
Immigration is expected to continue to have a big impact on the workforce numbers.
The province projects that 2012 will be a record year for immigration, with more than 30,000 people arriving directly from other countries. Almost 36,000 people moved to Alberta from other provinces between January and October 2012, which suggests the final number will be well over 40,000.
The Alberta workforce was 2.27 million in December, up 24,000 from 12 months earlier.
“Growing the workforce is the priority of the government, and there are some companies that are having trouble finding skilled workers,” said Winwood.
The 2012 Alberta job tally compares with the 77,500 jobs created in 2011, and the net loss of 8,600 jobs in 2010.
Hirsch said that while the growth of full-time positions is good news, the lower number of jobs compared with 2011 “represents a distinct cooling.”
For December, Ontario accounted for about three-quarters of the jobs added in Canada and almost all of the other provinces either saw gains or stayed even. The only exception was Nova Scotia, which lost 5,000 jobs.
The results easily topped economist estimates for a gain of just 5,000 jobs nationally and an unemployment rate of 7.3 per cent.
Nationally, Canada created 201,500 jobs in 2012.
“Canadian employment not only defied expectations in December, it also appears to be defying gravity,” Doug Porter, the Bank of Montreal’s deputy chief economist, said in a report.
“The Canadian labour market finished 2012 in fine fashion, posting solid job gains in four of the last five months and driving the jobless rate to its lowest ebb in four years.”