Challenges in construction labour market

CALGARY — A just-released forecast of labour supply and demand says construction will need to recruit more than 250,000 workers, including the traditional number of new entrants to the workforce, to meet building needs from now until 2021 in Canada.

A large portion of this need, about 210,000, is to replace retiring workers, according to the Construction Looking Forward, National Summary, 2013-2021, published by the Construction Sector Council.

Read more: http://tinyurl.com/d2xpzuv

New Edmonton Chamber of Commerce chairman has firsthand knowledge of labour shortage

EDMONTON – Dealing with a shortage of workers tops the list of priorities for the Edmonton Chamber of Commerce, and its new chairman knows better than most about the labour crunch.

As CEO of Savvia Inc., a technology consulting firm he founded in 2010, Lindsay Dodd says his growing business has 10 positions vacant because he can’t find qualified staff. But because Savvia manages the information technology systems for a wide range of firms, he also sees he’s not the only one struggling to fill jobs.

Read more: http://tinyurl.com/avx8q3t

Job vacancy rate highest in Alberta

CALGARY — Alberta has the highest job vacancy rate in the country, according to the Canadian Federation of Independent Business, and that is translating into close to 55,000 unfilled private sector jobs. The CFIB said Tuesday that as Canada’s labour markets continue to recover from the 2008-2009 recession, the percentage of unfilled private sector jobs increased slightly from 2.3 per cent in the second quarter to 2.4 per cent in the July-to-September period.

Read more: http://tinyurl.com/ctahfo2  

Edmonton’s low unemployment rate second only to Regina’s

EDMONTON- The city’s unemployment rate remained the second lowest in the country in October, according to Statistics Canada.

Unemployment in the Edmonton census metropolitan area (CMA) dipped 0.2 percentage points from the previous month to 4.3 per cent, the federal agency said. It’s the second month in a row that Edmonton has posted the nation’s second-lowest jobless rate among CMAs. Only Regina, at 3.9 per cent, was lower in October.

Read more: http://tinyurl.com/b8epc34

New immigration rules could ease Alberta labour crunch

An opportunity to do advanced research in biomedical engineering lured PhD student Pierre Wijdenes to Calgary from France two months ago.

Wijdenes, 24, isn’t sure if he’ll remain in Canada when he finishes his research and his student visa expires, but a federal announcement on Wednesday has cleared the way for a greater number of highly skilled foreigners like him to stay as permanent residents if they want.

Read more: http://tinyurl.com/cssymc6  

Energy sector grapples with acute labour shortages

Any legitimate job offering $80,000-plus as a starting salary should be an easy sell to students in these troubled economic times, right? Wrong.

“Even in Alberta there is a poor connection in the K-12 education system to find balanced information about the oil and gas industry,” says Cheryl Knight, executive director and chief executive of the Petroleum HR Council of Canada. “The environmental messaging is much more attractive and probably easier to make interesting for students everywhere. It is a key problem that our industry faces, even just outside my door.”

Read more: http://tinyurl.com/9n5zeqe