By Sheldon Spackman

deep dive into local labour stats

Regional approach to economic development revealed

Jun 21, 2019 | 3:20 PM

Local municipalities have partnered with Alberta’s Ministry of Labour and Immigration to develop a new tool to get more people working.

The goal of the Regional Labour Force Profile is to provide superior labour force information to local businesses that are considering growth, expansion, or new development or markets, as well as information to prospective entrepreneurs and companies thinking of locating in or starting up in the region.

The City of Red Deer, Town of Blackfalds, Red Deer County and the Town of Sylvan Lake each took part and contributed $4,000 to the project to match funds from the province.

According to the Regional Labour Force Profile, the area that the four communities represent accounts for 226,396 Albertans, of which 68% are of working age (15-64).

It indicates residents have an average employment income of $57,752, slightly lower than the provincial figure (-4%).

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More than half the local population between the ages of 25 to 64 has completed some form of post-secondary education.

The regional economy, which grew by 5 per cent between 2013 and 2018, sustains over 119,000 jobs. However, when looking at the number of jobs versus the number of workers in the region there was a large surplus of workers found in the trades, transport and equipment operators, management, education and law, social, community and government services occupations.

An economic snapshot of the region outlined in the profile shows a labour force participation rate of 72 per cent, unemployment of 7.7 per cent and a median income of $43, 862 in 2018.

John Sennema, land and economic development manager with the City of Red Deer says creating the Regional Labour Force Profile was a great way to collaborate with their municipal neighbours and to provide comprehensive and useful data to local businesses.

“I believe we all understand and know that we’re still heavily reliant upon the oil and gas service sector and we know that that’s a significant component of our labour take-up within this region,” he explains. “But it begs the need to try and diversify our economy further for sure. We do have specific local initiatives that we’re undertaking with regard to that, we’re trying to become more event-focussed which has a tourism component to it, which is a growing sector of our economy.”

Sennema says capitalizing on the momentum of the Canada Winter Games held in February and the many great facilities we have in our city is also very important.

“Hopefully that’s one step towards diversification but there are many others as well,” he exclaims. “From a diversification perspective, I think there are a lot of different opportunities. We know going back to our economic development strategy back I believe in 2013 that we had the most SME’s (Small and Medium-sized Enterprises) per capita in Canada and I think we attribute a lot of that to Queen’s Business Park where folks can relocate and carve-off pieces of property that suit their needs.”

From here, Sennema anticipates gathering more data.

“The more data we can get, the better we can understand the employment environment,” he explains. “To me, this was just an addition to some of the initiatives we’ve already started. We have what’s called our Investment Opportunity Engine which is a website that allows businesses to review the local economic climate in Red Deer and it helps them to search their customer base and competition and discover industry trends and learn about local opportunities.”

According to the Regional Labour Force Profile, the Top 5 industries by employment include healthcare & social assistance (11%), retail trade (11%), construction (11%), mining, quarrying, oil & gas extraction (8%), and accommodation and food services (7%).

The Top 5 industries expected to drive employment demand include: healthcare and education services, administrative & support services, professional, scientific & technical services, specialty trade contractors, and heavy and civil engineering construction.

The Top 5 occupations expected to be in demand throughout central Alberta in the coming years include: industrial, electrical & construction trades, services support & other service occupations, professional occupations in nursing, supervisors & technical occupations in natural resources and agriculture, along with technical occupations related to natural & applied sciences.

Olds College, Red Deer College, Burman University, Express Employment and Manpower were consulted while the profile was being compiled.