Alberta is on fire, vaccinated people are Nazis, and the election is a hot mess. If your spirits are down in the dumps, here’s some good news to cheer you up, kind of.
According to Statistics Canada’s April 2023 Labor Force Survey, Calgary’s unemployment rate is no longer the highest in the country. Calgary’s unemployment rate was 6.4% in April compared to 6.6% in March.
Based on survey results from last month, the city now has the second-highest unemployment rate, just behind Windsor, Ontario, at 6.7%.
“We have more people working today than ever before in our history, and our people are earning more every week than anywhere else in the country,” UCP candidate Tanya Fir said in a statement.
Specifically, employment in Calgary increased by almost 16,000 jobs, according to Calgary Economic Development.
Meanwhile, the unemployment rate in Edmonton and Lethbridge increased by 5.7% and 4.9%, respectively. However, Calgary isn’t off the hook yet.
The city still has the highest unemployment rate in Alberta. Since August 2022, Calgary has experienced steady job losses, with over 30,000 jobs eliminated in six months.
“Alberta has the slowest wage growth in the country…In addition, Alberta’s unemployment rate remains higher than the national average,” commented NDP candidate and energy critic Kathleen Ganley.
Why are unemployment rates increasing instead of decreasing when we have campaigns like Alberta Is Calling? Why do we have labour shortages across the board?
“It’s a skills mismatch — that is the biggest problem,” Janet Lane, an economic specialist at the Canada West Foundation, told CBC News.
Roughly 70,000 jobs in Alberta require a high school diploma or less, but many Calgarians have post-secondary educations. They aren’t looking for jobs in the labour industry.
The Canadian Manufacturers and Exporters (CME) echo this sentiment, claiming younger Canadians have no interest in labour jobs.
“We’re seeing a large portion of the baby boomers heading to retirement right now. Seems like that generation was far more willing to work more labour-intensive industries,” said Fergus Dunphy, CFO for two Canadian crane companies.
Provincial officials claim more than 30,000 Canadians moved to Alberta in the third and fourth quarters of 2022. But how many have filled our labour gap?
