By Hayley Ferguson

Labour Force Survey

City-led survey asks local businesses for feedback on labour force

Sep 16, 2019 | 5:24 PM

Medicine Hat, AB – A city-led initiative called “Invest Southeast Alberta” is launching its business attraction and labour market survey this week.

Sandra Blythe, a business support officer with the city, says that they have reached out to over 3,000 businesses with personal letters asking them to take part.

“It’s critical that we have as many businesses as possible take it because that improves the quality of data. And in turn, it ensures that the projects that we will be moving on over the next few years are exactly what business needs and they are the priority project of business.” She explained.

Blythe says that the survey will look at everything from regulations, environment, housing, and the labour force.

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To make sure they get the best response rate they can, Blythe says that they have trained over 70 volunteers to go into businesses and explain why it is so important.

Between Aurora Cannabis and Folium Biosciences opening their doors, Blythe expects about 1,000 new jobs in the city.

That’s why a major part of the survey will focus on workforce development.

“We spend a lot of time over the last four years looking at attracting companies to the city. A focus is now going to be on how do we attract the worker to the city.” Blythe said.

While she is optimistic that they will be able to attract the labour force needed, Blythe says that it’s not just new companies that could be in a tough spot looking for workers.

“Companies are worried about whether their workers are going to go to Aurora or Fiolum or other businesses. And that could very well happen.” She continued. “So it’s not just Aurora or Fiolum that are going to be challenged with finding workers, it’s going to affect everyone. So it’s critical that we have a workforce development strategy in place and so we can start serving those needs and doing what business needs us to do.”

That’s why Blythe says it’s so important these local businesses take part in the survey.

“They live and breathe the challenges of our communities and I know they lay awake at night finding solutions. So they are the best people to go to when we are looking at what do we do in economic development is the businesses.”

Blythe says that all businesses received letters on how to access the survey online which will be available for three weeks.

“Businesses can go in, they can start the survey. If the phone rings, they can leave it, come back later. The only caveat is that they have to use the same device that they started the survey on.”

After the results are in, a research report will put together for experts to put together action plans and committees.

As well, Blythe says the information will be used to create a benchmark so that they can do the same survey again in four years to see how the community and economy are changing.