A new agreement has been signed to help foreign workers ease growing labour pains in Alberta’s oilsands.
The deal inked last week by federal and provincial officials will streamline the process of recruiting workers through the federal Temporary Foreign Worker Program.
A skilled but aging workforce means the future of Alberta’s oilsands development could hinge on the ability to hire foreign skilled workers, industry observers say.
While Canadian oil-industry expertise has played a role in projects around the world, oilsands officials in northern Alberta are concerned that by 2010 they won’t have enough Canadian employees to staff the projects now being planned.
“The writing is on the wall,” said Bill Almdal, executive director of the Athabasca Regional Issues Working Group (RIWG), which represents Athabasca oilsands developers.
“The skilled workforce is aging and will retire shortly.”
Under a Memorandum of Understanding, the federal government will now look at requests to recruit temporary foreign workers up to 12 months in advance of the expected shortfall.
This will allow companies in the industry to preplan projects and investment.
If a company demonstrates a need for temporary foreign workers, the federal government will consider an overall shortage for those skilled workers exists. As well, work permits granted to temporary foreign workers can be valid for the length of the project instead of just one year.
To illustrate the current problem, Almdal referred to an oilsands project last summer where a group of 90 skilled construction workers included 73 people who were drawing old-age pensions.
Driving all this is the massive oilsands development, which estimates spending of $38.1 billion between 2004 and 2015 – on top of a $28-billion investment between 1996 and 2003. By 2015, these expenditures will likely result in an expected oilsands production run of 2.5 million barrels per day.
“We know the young people are not going into the trades,” said Almdal, who noted that there is no employee crunch now. “Between 2006 to 2010 we’re going to need a lot more people, and it’s in 2010 when we’ll need our largest workforce. We’ll be scrambling to replace those who will be retiring and to find additional workers.”
Oberg noted that the oilsands industry is vital to the success of both the Alberta and Canadian economies.
“This agreement gives Fort McMurray oilsands employers a way to recruit temporary foreign workers when there are no Albertans or Canadians available to fill labour needs, and ensures the continued development and success of oilsands projects,” he said last week.
However, Almdal emphasizes that RIWG’s primary objective is to try to encourage young people to go into the trades so they can be hired to work on oilsands projects.
HOW IT WORKS
* Alberta Learning will review and evaluate the credentials of skilled foreign trades- people, as notified by an employer, to ensure that Alberta training and certification standards are met. They will also assess the trade knowledge and skills of the tradesperson, on a cost-recovery basis, before their arrival in Canada.
* Human Resources and Skills Development Canada will assess employer requests in the context of available labour market information for the region and the trade, including unemployment rates, prevailing wage rates and indications of labour shortages. They’ll also examine an employer’s efforts to recruit qualified Canadians and permanent residents for the position.
* Citizenship and Immigration Canada (CIC) will verify that the applicant meets the prerequisites of the position and CIC’s requirements concerning security, criminality and health.
Source: Government of Alberta
