Alberta Loses Most Jobs In 34 Years As Oil Crunch Cripples Labor Market
The province is at the center of Canada’s dying oil patch and as crude extended its seemingly endless decline last year, Alberta saw oil and gas investment plunge by a third. That’s bad news for authorities who count on resources for 30% of provincial revenues.
Rig activity fell by half in the first seven months of 2015 and as the job losses mounted, the sorrow deepened – literally. Suicide rates jumped by 30% and in Calgary commercial break-ins almost doubled from a year earlier, while bank robberies were up 65% and home invasions increased 52% (read more here).
Meanwhile, food bank usage spiked as those who used to be donors found themselves depending on the free meals for subsistence.
And speaking of food, prices for fresh fruit and vegetables are seeing double-digit inflation thanks to the plunging loonie.
All in all, a very bad situation indeed and on Tuesday we learned that the picture was actually materially worse than an initial round of statistics led us to believe.
“Statscan’s annual revisions of its national Labour Force Survey data ratcheted up Alberta’s net job losses last year to 19,600, from the 14,600 the statistical agency originally reported in its final 2015 survey released in early January,” The Globe And Mail reports, adding that the losses “exceed the 17,000 jobs Alberta shed in the Great Recession in 2009.”
In fact, 2015 was the worst year for job losses in the province since 1982.
By the end of last year, Alberta’s unemployment rate had risen to 7.1% from just 4.8% at the end of 2014. As The Globe And Mail goes on to note, that’s the highest level in two decades. And it’s projected to get worse. Alberta could see unemployment rise to 7.5% in H1.
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