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Alberta job agency turns to U.S. veterans to fill vacancies

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Alberta job agency turns to U.S. veterans to fill vacancies
Josh Wingrove Edmonton — The Globe and Mail Wednesday, Jul. 04 2012
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As Alberta faces a shortage of skilled labourers, an Edmonton team is taking its recruitment message south of the border – and to veterans.

The Edmonton Economic Development Corporation, a city-run agency, is turning to the United States to try and ease an estimated shortage of 114,000 skilled workers over the next decade as Canadian talent pools dry up.

One pillar of the effort is posting on VetJobs, an online job board for veterans of the U.S. armed forces, as well as a recruiting session in Seattle and a website, OpportunityAwaits.com. The jobs are within Edmonton and across northern Alberta, including Fort McMurray, the heart of oil sands development.

“We need workers across the entire northern half of the province,” said Mike Wo, the EEDC’s executive director of economic growth and development. “... Some of the occupations we’re looking for do align nicely with former military experience.”

The need for workers had eased over the past few years, but has since picked up again. “It is starting to tighten up significantly and quite quickly,” he said.

The VetJobs postings are already online, cross-posted to each U.S. state in order to catch more eyeballs. “NOTE: This position is located in Canada,” the ad begins, saying Alberta “welcomes newcomers with one of the English-speaking world’s best education systems, leading-edge health care, and a quality of life coveted by many.” The website was buzzing Wednesday – the Fourth of July holiday – and Alberta is an easy sell to Americans, says VetJobs CEO Ted Daywalt, a retired navy captain.

“This is a big deal,” he said from his Atlanta-area office. He started pursuing job postings after hearing about the province’s boom – and knowing it’s a “conservative” province. “There’s not a language barrier, or too much of a language barrier, and the values are very similar,” he says. “There’s so many win-win-wins, plus-plus-pluses to this deal.”

His website is the only online job board the EEDC is using, but the job postings are far from exclusive. They’re posted by each company, advertised to unions and will be the subject of a Seattle job fair next month. Alberta’s planned capital projects total $193-billion, “equivalent to 211 CenturyLink Fields,” one ad says, a reference to the home stadium of the NFL’s Seattle Seahawks.

This is the first time EEDC has targeted its job postings to veterans, and its first time holding a job fair in the U.S. (having previously recruited engineers in the United Kingdom at the height of the boom). The EEDC expects to hold another job fair in Chicago this fall. The military connection was a nice fit for some highly skilled jobs, Mr. Wo said.

The jobs have nothing to do with building the Keystone pipeline, as American media are reporting. The pipeline hasn’t been approved. “There’s roads construction, highways, overpasses, basically everything under the sun. Some of the stuff may be related to pipelines,” Mr. Wo said, later adding: “We’re not building a halfway pipeline to nowhere.”

What Alberta doesn’t need, he stressed, is unskilled labour – they are skilled jobs, such as welders, pipefitters and power engineers. They’ll be brought in as temporary foreign workers, meaning they can work for up to four years in Canada. Each job requires a Labour Market Opinion, or a government form saying Canadians can’t fill the jobs themselves. The United States typically accounts for more temporary foreign workers than any other country.

“We are looking at Canadian workers first, obviously,” Mr. Wo said, saying companies have already been recruiting across Canada, including veterans of the Canadian Forces. “They’re been quite successful, but the talent pools are starting to run dry.”
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Good for them.  Alberta needs a lot of good hard working people with skills.  Judging where I live there are little skills or hard working interested in going to Alberta.
 
fraserdw said:
Good for them.  Alberta needs a lot of good hard working people with skills.  Judging where I live there are little skills or hard working interested in going to Alberta.

I think I alluded to that in another thread, but the usual suspects didn't want to believe.    :nod:
 
It pisses me off how much high schools and parents push the university path as the 'superior' stream in life to kids. Looking back at my time in high school, there was a clear academic stratification (as opposed to streaming) that pushed the 'smarter' path as doing the university prep courses, and dodging anything to do with trade skills...
 
George Wallace said:
I think I alluded to that in another thread, but the usual suspects didn't want to believe.    :nod:

Roger that, I got into an argument with a woman who claimed that it was her right to be unemployed/on welfare in NB because she was Acadian and going to Alberta to work would be equal to Anglos ethnically cleansing Acadia.  Best excuse I ever heard for collecting EI/welfare here in NB where only 46% can read AND write in either language.
 
Unemployed Ontarians dodged another one. Americans will go work in Alberta.
 
CDN Aviator said:
Unemployed Ontarians dodged another one. Americans will go work in Alberta.

Bear in mind these hirings are for those already skilled in a trade; the website advertises nothing below journeyman status, and typically I was looking at 6k hours in trade at a minimum.

'Joe on the street' unemployed (American, Ontarian, whomever) isn't the targeted audience here, and I don't think those with the requisite trade skills are generally proving that reluctant in the end to pick up and move. The welfare complainers are seldom skilled labour. A lot of Ontario unemployment is either unskilled industrial labour, or service sector folks whose jobs disappeared with local economies. Few of *these* are in much position to bring portable skills to another province, or have the means to effect a move and have a few months worth of expenses to live off of while they job and apartment hunt...
 
funny thing is i took a course in diesel mechanics and all i being told is come back in 5 years when you have experience, how can i or anyone who is new to the job get experience if no one will hire them
 
Brihard said:
It pisses me off how much high schools and parents push the university path as the 'superior' stream in life to kids. Looking back at my time in high school, there was a clear academic stratification (as opposed to streaming) that pushed the 'smarter' path as doing the university prep courses, and dodging anything to do with trade skills...

Yes, I remember that well.  Now here I am making more than either my accountant or lawyer as a journeyman.
 
Brihard said:
It pisses me off how much high schools and parents push the university path as the 'superior' stream in life to kids. Looking back at my time in high school, there was a clear academic stratification (as opposed to streaming) that pushed the 'smarter' path as doing the university prep courses, and dodging anything to do with trade skills...

It's because that's all teachers know... don't get me wrong, I have nothing but respect for teachers (I wouldn't brave a classroom full of teenagers with anything less then a charged firehose), but teachers themselves have been exposed to only university, they did a bachelors degree, and started teaching... so it becomes an endless cycle... teachers recommend students go to university, many do, a small majority do education, return to teach, and based on their own life experience, recommend university... when was the last time you ever head of an ex-plumber who went back to school to teach secondary education?
 
a Sig Op said:
It's because that's all teachers know... don't get me wrong, I have nothing but respect for teachers (I wouldn't brave a classroom full of teenagers with anything less then a charged firehose), but teachers themselves have been exposed to only university, they did a bachelors degree, and started teaching... so it becomes an endless cycle... teachers recommend students go to university, many do, a small majority do education, return to teach, and based on their own life experience, recommend university... when was the last time you ever head of an ex-plumber who went back to school to teach secondary education?

Don't paint us all with the same brush.  If you haven't been in high school in the past 10 years, you might be surprised how hard some of us "academics" are pushing trades, especially here in Alberta with the RAP program.
 
I have many family and friends (oddly enough many were EI collecting NBers) who went to Alberta with 0 formal training and still found good jobs. Some decided to return to school and were employed as apprentices, working to get their journeymen papers.

My buddy in Cold Lake told me that it is like in the movies, but instead of mexicans jumping in the back of pickup trucks, its guys hanging out on the corners waiting for a bus to pick them up to do unskilled labour for the day. 
 
captloadie said:
I have many family and friends (oddly enough many were EI collecting NBers) who went to Alberta with 0 formal training and still found good jobs. ...

Yep, me too; and, every single one of them can read AND write in at least one language ... most in both languages. Funny that.  :)
 
Sorry man, must of been some bad stuff I was smoking. Got anything to eat?
 
ArmyVern said:
Yep, me too; and, every single one of them can read AND write in at least one language ... most in both languages. Funny that.  :)


Just quoting CBC NB news story from 4 months ago, not my original research. 
 
fraserdw said:
Just quoting CBC NB news story from 4 months ago, not my original research.

No problem. I have no issues with it. I can find same in downtown Toronto, Edmonton, anyplace/Canada.

Likewise the tards out there who believe that sitting on their duffs collecting pogey is an "entitlement" ... one needs look no further than Anytown, Canada to find one of those. For the vast majority of people anywhere in Canada, working is a matter of pride. Judging by the huge numbers of East Coasters employed in Alberta, BC and the Big Smoke (pronunciation with Miramichi accent = Tarana) and within the CF itself - apparently there's no monopoly on being unwilling to move where/with the work either.

:)
 
've been skill referencing for some telecom contractors, it's stunning the experience from out of country on paper. Put to task, they may as well have gone to BCIT or some such nationaly recognized institute for all they know (Nothing wrong with education, but make sure you can apprentice once done, just 'cause you have a tickey does not mean you get a jobby). Unfortunately, even ex-Lineman with less than 10 years (Reg) lack required skillsets (primarily based on postings). Skilled doesn't necesarily guarantee work. I counsel anyone in my trade to get outside civy quals at every opportunity, until telecom is red sealed, anyone can do it. I personally have yet to interview a wiredog though. :)
 
Maybe instead of paying EI checks, the money is used for courses and a plane ticket from all the seasonal work areas to Alberta.
 
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