Job Market Trends and News in Alberta

source: jobbank.gc.ca

Week of Dec 02 – Dec 06, 2019

• The Government of Alberta is investing $22M to deliver more mental health supports for post-secondary students at 26 institutions. Additionally, the government announced it is providing $6.75M to Kids Help Phone to expand its online and telephone counselling and volunteer-led text-based crisis support.
• Three Nations Energy (3NE) is starting the second and final phase of Fort Chipewyan’s $7.8M solar farm. The project will create 40 local jobs during construction, plus contractor positions.
• The Canadian Mental Health Association (CMHA) in Grande Prairie is moving to a larger space in order to expand its services. CMHA hosts a number of programs including housing first, disability services and mobile addictions services.
• Printing of the Edmonton Sun is being outsourced starting in 2020 to Great West Newspapers’ St. Albert press facility. The existing printing plant in Edmonton will close, resulting in the layoff of about 44 staff.
• The Government of Alberta is providing $1.4M through Emissions Reduction Alberta towards a $3M feasibility study on carbon capture and storage at the Lehigh Cement plant in Edmonton. If the pilot is succesful, Lehigh could create about 20 full-time jobs.
• The Government of Alberta is increasing the school nutrition program to $18.5M with a new $3M grant for non-profits to pilot better delivery of the program in partnership with schools
• Alberta Justice is planning to lay off 90 civil lawyers in January 2020 and outsource more legal work to meet a $20M provincial budget cut
• Church’s Chicken restaurants in Canada, which is in the process of re-branding as “Church’s Texas Chicken”, is opening a new restaurant in Edmonton this year, one of five openings across Canada
• Inner Spirit Holdings, a retail cannabis company, will be voluntarily winding-down its corporate Watch It! retail operations by the end of 2019. There are currently four Watch It! franchise locations in the province, two each in Calgary and Edmonton.
• Prairie Lights Power is proposing a natural gas-fired power facility south of Grande Prairie. If approved, the company estimates the construction phase, starting in May 2020, will generate $400M in value-added for the local economy, and support 300 jobs.
• Fire & Flower Holdings Corp. is opening new retail cannabis locations in Red Deer and Sylvan Lake during the week of December 16, 2019
• The Town of Okotoks is moving forward on the proposed $18.3M Arts and Learning Campus. March 2020 is the targeted date for construction to begin, with July 2021 as the expected completion date for the office building. 
• Radient Technology is currently building its Edmonton III facility, with operations expected to begin in the second half of calendar 2020. Additional commissioning and validation work for the Edmonton II facility is scheduled for early 2020.
• The Municipal District (MD) of Wood Buffalo has approved up to $16.85M for a planned art gallery at Keyano College in Fort McMurray and $20.4M for regional recreational facilities. In total, the MD budgeted $153M for capital projects in 2020.
• Hut 8, a cryptocurrency company with major operations in Medicine Hat has assumed full ownership of a second facility in Drumheller from its partner, the Bitfury Group. The US$7M deal involves the ownership of nine data centres controlled by Bitfurly.
• Cielo Waste Solutions has signed a long-term agreement with CP Rail to use at least 2.5 million scrap rail ties as feedstock for a biodiesel refinery. Cielo announced the supply agreement means that one of the four proposed refinery locations will move forward.
• The Town of Okotoks is taking back its water and wastewater services from EPCOR. As a result, the town will be adding the ten existing staff to its payroll, as well as one manager and two other positions.
• Trans Mountain Corp. has officially started work on the Trans Mountain pipeline expansion project. The company expects 4,200 workers to be employed along the pipeline corridor by the end of the year. 
• Condor Airlines, a German airline, is launching a direct flight between Edmonton and Frankfurt twice a week starting June 1, 2020
• Suncor Energy has sanctioned the Forty Mile Wind Power Project in southern Alberta. The company estimates that the renewable power project will have a capital spend of $300M, with 25% of the capital to be spent in 2019 and the remainder to be distributed over the next two years.
• MEG Energy Corp. has successfully completed rail contracting to support its 2020 production levels, including the re-contracting of a significant portion of its rail loading capacity at the Bruderheim rail loading facility
• Obsidian Energy has approved a $49.4M capital plan for the first half of 2020. The plan will fund the continued drilling of the remaining 9 wells in its Phase 2 program and other operational spending. All wells are expected to be completed prior to spring .
• Husky Energy is planning to spend $3.2-$3.4B in its 2020 capital program. Major turnaround and maintenance work is scheduled at its Lloydminster Upgrader, the Lloyd thermal project, and its Sunrise and Tucker projects in Alberta.
• Granite Oil is planning to recomplete five shut-in wells in southern Alberta starting in mid-January 2020 with its second recompletion program. Granite also has 11 additional wells identified as potential future recompletion candidates.
• Western Milk Pool is starting construction of the Dairy Innovation West facility near Red Deer in April 2020. The facility, which will remove water from raw milk to create concentrated components, is expected to be complete in March 2021.
• Strathcona County is expecting to complete design work for its $61.8M multi-purpose ag facility by mid to late April with construction scheduled to start in late June. The full site is expected to be finished by August 2022.
• Halliburton, an oil field service company headquartered in Texas, is suspending its cementing product service line at the end of 2019. It currently operates its cementing service line in Calgary, Red Deer, Whitecourt and Grande Prairie.
• Gibson Energy and US Development Group, LLC are partnering to build and operate a diluent recovery unit (DRU) near Hardisty. ConocoPhillips Canada has been contracted to process bitumen blend through the DRU to be shipped to the U.S. Gulf Coast by rail.
• Harvest, a not-for-profit co-builder of companies, plans to set up offices across the Prairies and has started with its recent move into Calgary’s M2 building in East Village
• Atlas Biotechnologies is providing almost $300,000 over the next two years to fund three medical cannabis research studies at the University of Alberta in Edmonton
• Canadian Natural Resources Limited (CNRL) is planning to spend $4.05B in its 2020 capital budget, an increase of $250M over 2019. CNRL plans to add about 60 drilling locations across Alberta, creating about 1,000 additional full time equivalent jobs.
• The Government of Alberta is adding hundreds of new RCMP officers at a cost of $286M over the next five years. About 300 uniformed officers will join detachments and specialized RCMP units across the province along with 200 new civilian members.