When it comes to jobs, province has two realities

There’s two versions of reality going on in Alberta today.

In one reality, jobs are being created, the unemployment rate is falling in cities like Edmonton and the economy is slowly getting better — or has stopped getting worse.

That was the picture painted by Economic Development Minister Deron Bilous on Monday when he updated the provincial government’s job creation efforts.

“Our plan is creating jobs and we are getting back on our feet,” he declared while in Calgary at an office hub for technology and other startup firms.

“If you look at numbers in the past three months ... we are starting to turn a corner and trending in a positive direction.”

In this world, the province lost 27,400 jobs between May and July but has created 25,500 jobs since then. Private-sector forecasters project Alberta will return to modest economic growth next year.

But in the other reality, Calgary’s unemployment rate has topped double digits for the first time since 1993, oil has dropped back below US$45 a barrel and thousands of people have been stuck without a paycheque for more than a year.

That’s the universe Philip Howard of Strathmore lives in.

The 47-year-old father of two daughters has been out of work for a year from his job as a mechanical piping designer working on oil and gas facilities.

His employment insurance recently ran out. His bills are mounting — as is his frustration.

“Rent is coming at the end of November, and I don’t know what we’re going to do,” he said.

“My daughter, believe it or not, is helping us out (financially) and she works at Dairy Queen, but I can’t even get a job at Dairy Queen.”

Howard spoke to Postmedia after federal statistics released Friday showed the unemployment rate in the province stayed flat at 8.5 per cent in October, but jumped to 10.2 per cent in Calgary.

That’s up from 6.7 per cent a year earlier.

In Edmonton, with a large public service sector and fewer oilpatch head office jobs, the rate fell to 6.9 per cent, down from a peak at eight per cent in August.

In Howard’s world, his employer saw its design work dry up as the downturn struck. The company temporarily laid off staff last year and hasn’t called him back.

He’s tried to find work in other fields such as at car dealerships, but faces skeptical employers who think he — along with other oilpatch workers — will simply return to higher-paying jobs in the energy sector once crude prices rebound.

And he’s chewed through his savings.

Howard’s attempts to get retraining through the province have only led to frustration and suggestions he sit on a long wait list to become a heavy equipment operator.

Despite the rejection, he continues to hunt for jobs every day, watching as open positions are swamped with applications from people like himself.

“All I do every day is go on job boards, 50 of them continually, two hours every morning ... and you’re sitting here watching the stupid oil prices and seeing what they’re doing every day, and hopefully something happens,” he said.

Howard isn’t the only one facing this gut-wrenching situation. Others tell of similar frustration and angst as they search for work in a city that only three years ago was thirsty for employees.

Recent payroll data indicate 35,000 Albertans like Howard have been unemployed for more than a year. About 60,000 people — roughly the population of Airdrie — have been without work for six months or more.

In the past year, 47,000 full-time jobs in Alberta have vanished.

Bilous knows many families are hurting across the province and the unemployment situation has deteriorated in Calgary.

The government is taking action, he insists.

The provincial jobs plan catalogues a number of steps taken in the past year, including the NDP’s effort to ramp up capital spending to $34.8 billion over five years on projects such as hospitals and roads.

The government estimates this will sustain an average of 10,000 jobs annually for three years.

This summer, the province restarted a student job program that created an estimated 2,700 positions. Other initiatives are designed to stimulate new work in the future.

The province’s initiative to provide $500 million in royalty credits to incentivize new petrochemical facilities are supposed to add 3,000 new construction positions and more than 1,000 permanent jobs.

Two announced tax credits for investor and companies are also expected to add about 4,500 new jobs each, once they come into effect.

Bilous is confident these initiatives are gaining momentum, but acknowledges it’s been a challenging couple of years with the oil and gas sector hit by low commodity prices.

“Believe me, I recognize that for those Albertans that are out of work or who have lost their job in the past year and a half, they are struggling,” said the EdmontonBeverly-Clareview MLA.

“There is hope and we are turning a corner as far as numbers go.”

However, for too many Albertans, that’s not what they’re seeing on the ground.

For people like Howard and thousands of others searching for work, it’s simply too early to say we’ve turned the corner — at least not in this corner of Alberta.

“It doesn’t feel like it’s turning around,” Howard said Monday evening after hearing the minister’s remarks.

“I feel like there’s no hope.”