As Alberta salaries continue to outstrip their B.C. counterparts, labour watchers are seeing the Prairie province attract a B.C. commuter base through “fly-in fly-out” programs that allow workers to stay based on the West Coast.
Mike Wo, executive director of the Edmonton Economic Development Corp.(EEDC), said Alberta oil and construction companies have been employing fly-in fly-out workers from Newfoundland and other parts of Eastern Canada for many years. He said fly-in fly-out programs for B.C. workers emerged four or five years ago and now appear to be gaining traction.
Oklahoma City, Oklahoma-based Devon Energy Corp. (NYSE:DVN) operates two Jackfish oil projects in Alberta and is building a third.
This fall, Devon set up dedicated charter flights from Vancouver and Kelowna to the oilsands, formalizing a fly-in fly-out program in the province that had previously run on a more ad-hoc basis. The program transports approximately 30 British Columbians to and from their West Coast homes and Alberta oilsands jobs.
A number of Devon’s workers live on Vancouver Island and were formerly employees at Richmond-based Catalyst Paper Corp.’s Crofton pulp and paper mill before industry woes led to significant layoffs.
Duncan resident Paul Hill, now a production operator for Devon in Alberta, said he left the Crofton mill a few years ago, just ahead of a wave of layoffs. He said he had to uproot his family for two years for a job in Fort Nelson, before landing a position with Devon in 2010.
Hill said his Alberta oilsands job has allowed him to move his family back to Duncan and buy his dream home.
He added that Devon’s recent move to formalize its fly-in fly-out program to B.C., including the addition of the charters, has made the Devon job more viable long-term by shaving off significant time and costs from the “commute.”
Mike Long, spokesman for Edmonton-headquartered PCL Construction, said the company currently has about 100 B.C.-based employees working at PCL projects in Alberta, which he said amounts to nearly 5% of the company’s workforce in the area. He said the company operates a charter flight at least once a week from Fort McMurray that stops at Kamloops, Kelowna and Vancouver.Long added that the company’s reliance on non-Alberta labour fluctuates with labour market trends and has been on the upswing in recent months.
“In the last six or 10 months especially, we’re seeing this ramping up and the need for people and the shortages starting to appear more on the radar.”
Wo said that while Alberta is keen on attracting skilled B.C. workers, the province is increasingly looking beyond Canada to meet its ever-growing demands. He noted that the EEDC ran a successful pilot program this past summer seeking tradespeople and skilled professionals in the Seattle, Washington, and Portland, Oregon, areas.
“Most of our [Alberta] companies have already tapped across Canada themselves, and they’ve gone and advertised, whether it’s on the job boards or career fairs out in Ontario, Quebec and B.C.,” he said. “But if we can’t find enough across Canada then we will probably consider going back into an international market.”
