Skills Gap | B.C. and Alberta | You can’t just put up a help-wanted ad or hang out a shingle

News that oilsands recruiters have been appearing at British Columbia’s junior hockey games isn’t going over well with the resource sector on this side of the provincial border who are chasing the same pool of skilled workers.

B.C.’s mining, forestry and energy sectors are expecting to need as many as 10,000 people over the next 10-15 years.

Alberta companies, meanwhile, are looking to hire 21,000 workers over the same time period.

The pressure to recruit has pushed at least one oilsands company to become partners with several Western Hockey League teams in markets such as Vancouver, Kamloops, Kelowna and Prince George to broaden its search for qualified candidates.

“Really, you can’t just put up a help-wanted ad or hang out a shingle; that doesn’t get the results. So we looked at how we can reach out to people who might be interested in working for us and where those demographic communities are with people with the right skills,” said Brad Bel-lows, a representative of MEG Energy Corp. of Calgary, which began its WHL recruitment drive in January.

The company was drawn to the league by the demographic of the audience: predominantly men between the ages of 25 and 44 years.

“We thought ‘Competition, fun, energy: ‘ this is a fit,” Bellows said.

He said MEG buys advertising at the games and in the community, then arranges a table in the concourse, staffing it with enthusiastic employees who tempt hockey fans with offers of flexible fly-in, fly-out jobs with healthy paycheques, good benefits and comfortable work camp facilities located about 120 kilometres south of Fort McMurray.

The result has been a significant increase in applications from those areas, he said…

Source:

via B.C., Alberta vie for skilled labour.