A new report released on Friday shows that the province lost a lot of positions during the month of December, but employment experts in Calgary aren’t worried about the setback.
Statistics Canada wrote in its December2018 Labour Force Survey that the province lost 17,000 positions last month as full-time losses outweighed the gains in part-time positions.
Calgary experts say the statistics aren’t worrying as a slowdown at the end of the year is a normal trend.
“Traditionally we see a slowdown in December. There is a lot of last minute work that comes up. Typically we’re busy for snow removal but we didn’t get much snowfall this December,” said Chris Massie with About Staffing.
While there has been a lot of attention on the ordeal faced by those in the oil and gas sector, Massie says there is also something to be said about the growth in other industries.
“We’ve seen it in all sectors actually; a variety of different companies,” he said. “There’s a lot of other sectors that are restructuring a little bit, maybe making some smarter decisions about how they allocate their resources.”
Massie says it’s a lot more important to look at the steady growth that’s been taking place in Alberta since the downturn.
“A lot of people over the past couple of years have been struggling to find work and a lot of people have been able to find jobs quickly. We see that fluctuation occur, but generally the story is positive.”
Massie expects to see the same trend continue throughout 2019 as there aren’t any big projects that require a lot of workers in the foreseeable future. He does, however, have some advice for job seekers in the new year.
“In terms of skills, some good ones are efficiency. Companies have been really focused on keeping their costs down as much as possible and increasing their productivity. My advice to job seekers is to tell stories about how have saved money in your personal and professional life or have been able to reduce costs in a particular area.”
Throughout 2018, Alberta had a net increase of 21,600 jobs and the unemployment rate dropped slightly from seven percent down to 6.4 percent.
The report also showed that the national unemployment rate has remained at its 43-year low of 5.6 percent.
(With files from Alesia Fieldberg and the Canadian Press)