Aboriginal unemployment rates off-reserve decrease

Between January of 2010 and January of 2011 more Aboriginal people found jobs, particularly in the mining, oil, gas, forestry and fishing sectors.

 “It shows unemployment for off-reserve is keeping pace, actually exceeding growth compared to the rest of the province,” said Terry Jordan, with communications for Alberta Employment and Immigration.

According to statistics provided by Jordan’s department, in that one year period the unemployment rate for Aboriginals working off-reserve went down six per cent while the employment rate climbed three per cent. The biggest move in unemployment rates came in Edmonton where unemployment dropped from 17.4 per cent to 8.6 per cent. In Calgary, the same time span saw a drop from 13.3 per cent to 7.5 per cent. The rate was less in the rest of Alberta where unemployment went from 14.4 per cent to 10.2 per cent.

Government officials are unclear as to whether provincial programs can take credit for the changes.

Jorden noted that a goal of the government is to encourage more employment among a number of under-represented groups, which includes the Aboriginal population as well as immigrants, people with disabilities and youth. Provincial education and training programs also target these groups.

Over the past five years, Alberta Employment and Immigration has worked with various sectors to develop 10-year workforce strategies that target underemployed groups.

“Is it because Aboriginal people are being specifically targeted (for these jobs)? It’s impossible to know from these statistics,” said Jordan.

In 2008, the provincial government took a specific look at what was keeping large numbers of the Aboriginal population underemployed. That report, the First Nations, Métis, Inuit Workforce Planning Initiative, was a joint effort of two provincial departments, Employment and Immigration and Aboriginal Relations.

The committee, chaired by MLA Verlyn Olsen, travelled across the province for 18 months meeting with Aboriginal organizations, employers and municipalities, both in rural and urban settings, to discuss the challenges facing Aboriginals. The draft report with 30 recommendations was submitted to the two ministers last fall and will be dealt with during the spring session.

“It’s looking at the big picture. Not just Employment and Immigration or our employment programs or things that Aboriginal Relations does, but the whole (government of Alberta), how the whole entire government can address the needs and desires of the Aboriginal community instead of just piecemeal projects here and there,” said Sally Stuike, with Employment and Immigration communications.

There is no additional funding attached to the report.
“Some ( recommendations) do fall under everyday operations, so there is money already allocated,” she said.

The problem with reports like this, along with the various sector workforce strategies, said Marie Gervais, is that there is no monitoring done to know whether government-led strategies are having a positive impact on Aboriginal employment. It is more likely that corporations, who have set concrete goals for hiring of Aboriginals, are having a greater impact in the change in employment numbers.

“When you have a group of people who are thinkers, getting together, talking about what they can do, they don’t leave the table and just drop all of that. They think about it. I’m guessing that there’s been some fallout in that sense,” said Gervais, founder of Global Leadership Associates Inc. “There is a collective consciousness that forms.”

In Gervais’ Outsider Report Card on Alberta’s Workforce Strategy, which was posted on her company’s website in February, she noted, “Devon Canada, Syncrude, Savanna Energy, Mikisew Group of Companies, Seven Lakes Oilfield Services, MXC Racing and Off Road, and ACFN Business Group all showed outstanding examples of either Aboriginal partnerships or highly successful Aboriginal business initiatives affecting significant numbers of Aboriginal people. None of these initiatives however were overtly connected to Alberta government policies and appear rather to be based on strategic partnerships between Aboriginal communities/organizations and businesses.”

She does, however, point to a corporate/provincial government partnership in which an enhanced employment strategy embraced by Safeway, in partnership with Oteenow and the provincial government, resulted in the employment of 850 self-identified Aboriginal persons in Safeway stores.

Gervais contends that more than workforce programs are needed to allow the Aboriginal population to fully reach their potential. A 2010 Alberta Venture magazine article highlighted the plight of Aboriginal Albertans: they experience shorter life expectancy, higher suicide rates, diabetes, tuberculosis and HIV/AIDS, lower graduation rates and lower levels of employment than their non-Aboriginal counterparts.

“Economic development has to be linked to community wellness,” said Gervais. “If community wellness isn’t sustained, you can put a lot of money into economic development and there won’t be any healthy people to take advantage of it.”