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Working in the Oil Sands - Oil Field Workers Needed

By Sid | March 19, 2008

There’s a petroleum business boom overwhelming several Calgary, Alberta towns. When a small town in a northern part of Alberta, namely Ft. McMurray, became the hotbed for oil exploration and extraction, those who live in the small city of 61,000 did not simply become instantaneously wealthy; in fact it is quite the opposite. This article investigates how the oil sands boom has not exactly helped all the towns in Alberta. The oil industry in general, not just the oil sands, is in need of qualified, trained workers for oil industry employment, and the financial rewards are high.

Because of the sudden influx of money and people, are the downfalls of having the monitory windfalls without an infrastructure in place to handle the boom, before it even began. To illustrate this type of economic boom and how it is come to affect the infrastructure of many of the small towns and larger cities which directly service the Alberta oil sands, one only needs to look at the sudden increase in housing, lack of housing and the influx of Oil Sands workers. Most of the biggest oil and gas companies, such as Suncor Energy, Conoco-Phillips and Syncrude Canada Ltd., make their footprints even larger in the economic infrastructure of Ft. McMurray and Calgary, the latter of the two is able to handle the infrastructure changes.

For sure the oil sands are booming with wages hitting the $30 to $40 per hour for people such as millwrights, pipefitters, welders and heavy equipment operators. Unlike the many previous mineral booms, such as the Yukon Gold Rush of the 1890s or the Uranium City boom in Saskatchewan in the 1950s, this economic boom is far different and will have a much wider spread of economic hardships for some and for others, economic thriving. People in Fort McMurray may make lots of money but because of a high cost of living it is still tough to get by. On top of that high wage there needs to be factored into the equation the true cost of living in and around Ft. McMurray, as some firms are offering up to $150 for a daily living allowances (Canadian Business), this has come at a cost to the current infrastructure in the form of housing and roads/services. How about this: Fort McMurray’s population has exploded by nearly 10% since 2004.

Several cities in the area are experiencing exponential growth due to the oil sands, not just Fort McMurray, and it’s affecting society. More and more skilled workers are leaving Calgary for the enticement of making a large amount of money in a shorter time frame than they would each year, or even over a five year span, working at their jobs in Calgary. Due to this economic boom, there have been two real classes of people, the oil elite and the oil poor, which have formed. If you are not part of the elite, you will more than likely not be one for quite some time unless you decide to make the move to working in the Oil Sands, or, start your own oil company. Of course that would only be a pipe dream.

Moving forward, to further complicate the job market situation is the proposed addition of even more skilled labor jobs further separating two classes as the fortunes of those in the oil industry continually outpace those of what the service industry are experiencing. In Calgary alone, there has been an overall labor force growth of 96.6%, which has significantly outpaced Alberta alone at 83.1% and has nearly doubled that of Canada’s overall growth of 50.6% (Calgary Economic Development). This is just one disparity of the economic boom, as there are clearly not enough workers to fill all the oil jobs.

As Calgary and the Oil Sands move forward into the next 10 years of projected growth, there will continue to be a visual disparity in salaries of individuals and what they can afford to survive with and live in, which continues to be evident in a boom town scenario. As Canadians flock to the assumed wealth that continues to be prevalent in Calgary and Ft. McMurray, the economics do not always justify the move as housing prices are on the rise, along with costs of everyday services. When, and if, the boom every finishes, individuals will either be part of the solution to financial wealth or part of the problem a bust can cause.

Topics: The Workplace |

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