Varcoe: Oilpatch workers ponder leaving sector as megamerger triggers layoffs - Calgary Herald

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With a drop in global oil prices and the fallout of the pandemic, the jobless rate in Alberta sat at 11.7 per cent in September.

The Conference Board of Canada projects Calgary’s unemployment rate will fall to 10.4 per cent next year, slowly easing to 8.6 per cent in 2024.

Yet, that is still higher than it was entering the pandemic.

The pressure for energy companies to consolidate isn’t going away, either.

“This is a global phenomenon. This is happening everywhere around the world,” Doug Schweitzer, Alberta’s minister of jobs, economy and innovation, told reporters Tuesday.

“Companies are having to reposition themselves, find efficiencies so they can survive in a very difficult time.”

Doug Schweitzer, Alberta’s minister of Jobs, Economy and Innovation Photo by Jim Wells/Postmedia

We can’t underestimate the turmoil this is causing, and governments at all levels — hello, Ottawa — shouldn’t either.

In September, the oil and gas sector provided a paycheque to more than 160,000 workers across the country. That’s down 14 per cent — or nearly 26,000 jobs lost — over the past year, reports the PetroLMI Division of Energy Safety Canada.

“A lot of the service sector jobs have been impacted, certainly since February,” PetroLMI vice-president Carol Howes said Tuesday.

“Now we will see a lot of the impact on those other (corporate) roles . . . that will be certainly under scrutiny in terms of a merger.”

At Precision Drilling Corp., CEO Kevin Neveu said the company has reduced the staff at its corporate offices to about 450 from 1,000 earlier this year, with job losses spread across North America. About half of those positions were eliminated in Canada.

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2020-10-28 11:03:06Z
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