More people are working in Calgary than ever, and yet the unemployment rate is on the rise
The huge influx of newcom‐ ers to Alberta has helped drive the job market in Cal‐ gary into strange territory, with the city seeing record levels of employment and surging levels of unemploy‐ ment at the same time.
The unemployment rate shot up to 6.5 per cent in March, up 0.4 percentage points from the month be‐ fore. The increase was driven not by a loss of jobs but rather the sheer growth in people looking for work.
An estimated 64,500 peo‐ ple in the Calgary metropoli‐ tan area were looking for work, according to the latest data from Statistics Canada, which is the most the city has seen in nearly two years.
At the same time, the number of people working grew to 931,600, which is the most the city has seen - ever.
"There's no doubt about it: there's a dramatic influx of additional people entering in‐ to the job market here," said Cristina Schultz with About Staffing, a Calgary-based re‐ cruitment and employment agency.
One thing she's been seeing "over and over" lately is people moving to Calgary primarily because they see it as more affordable than oth‐ er major cities, even if they don't have a formal job offer lined up.
"Cost of living in Calgary is the No. 1 driving factor that brings people here to enter‐ tain the [job] markets," she said.
"More often than not we are seeing that people are taking the leap of faith and making the move and looking for a job once they've lan‐ ded."
The number of people not in the labour force (that is, neither working nor looking for work) has also been on the decline; it's fallen every month so far in 2024.
Alicia Planincic, an economist with the Business Council of Alberta, said the province has an attractive mix of both "housing afford‐ ability and job opportunity" at the moment, which has helped attract newcomers, particularly from more ex‐ pensive housing markets in Ontario and British Colum‐ bia.
(While home prices have soared in Calgary recently, they still remain well below what people are paying in the greater Vancouver and greater Toronto areas.)
Numerous industries in Alberta are eager to hire new workers, she noted, which makes the move easier for those with the right skills.
"Construction has one of the highest job vacancy rates in Alberta - way higher than the national average," Planin‐ cic told CBC's Alberta@Noon.
"And a part of that is be‐ cause of so many folks mov‐ ing here, which is driving greater demand for housing and so builders are trying to respond to that."
The council published a report this week showing "Al‐ berta was the only major province where employment growth in the private sector was greater than in the pub‐ lic sector" over the past year.
"Private sector employ‐ ment growth in Alberta over that period was five times greater than the national av‐ erage," the report noted.
Increased competition for jobs
The flip side is that there is growing competition for jobs among those seeking employment, which can make the hunt even more challenging for longtime Cal‐ gary residents.
"It is certainly more com‐ petitive," Schultz said
"The candidate pool that you historically would be up against, as a resident, has two to three times the amount of applicants - peo‐ ple who are coming from out of province or out of country - and they do bring different skill sets and different educa‐ tion and different back‐ grounds."
While there are ups and downs in any given month, the job vacancy rate in Alber‐ ta has been generally trend‐ ing downward for the past couple of years, as the popu‐ lation has grown.
That suggests it's getting harder for unemployed peo‐ ple to find work but also that employers are finding the people they need to fill posi‐ tions.
On the whole, Schultz sees the recent labourmarket trends as positive for the city.
"There are more jobs. There are more people who fit in those jobs. That's good news," she said.