CLARKWATCH: Follow news and updates regarding sanctions on Mayor Clark.

Medicine Hat employers are struggling to find skilled workers.

Aug 24, 2017 | 5:38 PM

 

MEDICINE HAT, AB. – For the month of July, Medicine Hat saw an unemployment rate of 3.5 per cent, this is significantly down from the 13 per cent last year.

Mavis Conrad, job developer with Being Human Services, says that they have been getting an increasing number of employers contacting them about struggling to fill vacant positions.

“I am seeing a lot of retail jobs, restaurant jobs, one of the jobs I am struggling to fill are trades” she said.

Tradesmen are the most sought after by potential employers, with not enough properly trained people being able to fill the vacant positions now that the oil and gas sector has picked up again.

“Oil companies are still struggling to find people,” said Conrad. “We had an influx of people coming through our program at the beginning of the recession and they’ve all [exited] out of that field and so now oil field companies are starting to go back and no one is willing to go back into the field anymore.”

Aaron Fleming, president of the Medicine Hat Chamber of Commerce, explained that many businesses within the Chamber have been struggling to find skilled employees. He thinks this could be positive for attracting workers from outside of the Medicine Hat area.

“We need to find that work force that’s there, that’s either moved away or didn’t exist here in the first place” he said.

Local businesses in the area are having a difficult time filling journeymen positions, with some companies offering training and education to potential employees to help fill job vacancies.

The Canadian Federation of Independent Business (CFIB) reported that there were 28,500 job vacancies across the province of Alberta.