Plenty of positive indicators are surfacing related to Alberta’s economy.
Employment is up. Wages have risen. The province is the country’s economic growth leader.
But the lingering effects of a struggling economy are still there.
ATB Financial’s Economics & Research Team, in a recent report, says Albertans are still feeling the remnants of the recession.
After punching the numbers, ATB found that there is still a big gap between the number of Albertans who are without work but not receiving employment benefits.
“There are a few reasons why one might not collect EI: they may not have applied for it, they may not qualify, or they may have quit their previous job. But a more common reason is that the number of weeks of eligible benefits has run out,” says ATB.
“During the economic expansion of 2013 and early 2014, around 70,000 to 80,000 Albertans were unemployed without EI benefits. That gap soared to a record high of 133,000 in August of 2017. Since that time, the gap has not narrowed by much. In August of this year, the gap was still 115,000.”
It’s just another sign that while the economy has recovered in Alberta, albeit at a slow pace, there is still a lot of pain being felt out there from people who are without jobs.
Alberta’s history has been tied to the oil patch and that industry is truly what drives the province’s economy. When oil prices began their precipitous drop in the latter half of 2014, that triggered a punishing recession in the province for 2015 and 2016. And companies responded as they always do in times like that – jobs were shed to cut down on costs. Thousands of jobs. Jobs from the corporate head offices of downtown Calgary to the oil sands in the Fort McMurray area.
The economy rebounded in 2017 in Alberta and continues to grow this year, with economic forecasters predicting more of the same for the coming years. But the recovery is slow and obviously thousands of Albertans continue to feel the pain brought on by the recession.
Mario Toneguzzi is a veteran Calgary-based journalist who worked for 35 years for the Calgary Herald, including 12 years as a senior business writer.
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