Alberta’s hours-worked at 30-year low

As wildfires raged, Alberta’s labour market continued to struggle last month — job losses mounted, the unemployment rate surged and total hours worked hit their lowest mark in 30 years.

Statistics Canada released its first batch of labour data that captures some of the fallout of a blaze that forced production shutdowns in Alberta’s economically critical oilsands region and triggered the evacuation of Fort McMurray.

The report Friday found that Alberta’s unemployment rate soared to 7.8 per cent from 7.2 per cent in May following the loss of 24,100 jobs across several industries. The biggest drops were in the resources and construction sectors.

The survey, taken the week of May 15-21, said the total number of hours worked in Alberta decreased 5.1 per cent — the largest monthly decline since May 1986.

However, the actual impact of the wildfire on Alberta’s jobs numbers wasn’t entirely clear.

Statistics Canada said it collected survey data last month for the sub-provincial area that includes Fort McMurray, but due to the May 3 evacuation, it did not gather numbers for the smaller census area that encompasses the city. “Just looking at this with some common sense, it does kind of suggest that the wildfires did have a negative impact on the month,” Bank of Montreal senior economist Robert Kavcic said.

When the devastating fire broke out, the provincial economy had already been reeling from the sharp slide in oil prices.

In the 12 months leading up to May, employment in Alberta fell by 53,800 jobs or 2.3 per cent.

“The bigger picture is still going to be relative weakness in the province for some time, even though we’ve seen oil prices come back,” Kavcic said.

“I think we’re still in a much slower-growth environment than we’ve been used to in Alberta.”

The story was different nationwide as the headline job numbers beat economists’ expectations.

Across Canada, the labour survey showed an overall gain of 13,800 jobs in May. The increase helped push the jobless rate down to 6.9 per cent from 7.1 per cent — its lowest level since last July. Overall, national employment in May was up 0.6 per cent compared to 12 months earlier.