Job Spectrum

Things are starting to look up for job seekers in Calgary region. Calgary-area employers anticipate a healthy hiring atmosphere for the 2nd quarter of year 2011, based on latest Manpower Employment Outlook Survey.

The survey, unconfined on Tue, said 27 percent of employer’s plan to recruit for the forthcoming quarter, while one percent expect cutbacks. Another 70 % of employer’s plan to keep present recruitment levels and 2 percent are uncertain of their hiring objectives.

"Calgary's 2nd quarter Net Employment Outlook of 26 percent is an increase from the earlier quarter when area employers registered an outlook of eighteen percent," said Randy Upright, CEO of Manpower's Alberta Region. "It is also a fifteen percentage point rise from the outlook registered during the same time past year, indicating an optimistic recruiting climate for the second quarter of 2011." The net employment prospect is the number of companies who say they plan to recruit; minus employers who replied the survey asserting that they anticipate cutbacks.

Based on Alberta Employment and Immigration, Calgary's joblessness rate in Jan was 6.0 percent -the very same as in December. It had been 7.3 percent in January 2010. In Alberta, the joblessness rate in Jan was 5.9 percent, up from 5.5 percent in December. However it decreased from 6.6 percent in January 2010.

In a study note, ATB Financials senior economist Todd Hirsch in Calgary asserted that job generation in Alberta lagged behind most other territories in the 2010 revival period, but stronger employment development began to pick up around the turn of the year.

Employers in Edmonton and Red Deer, which had conventionally led the gains, now trail with a net optimistic balance of 12 percent and 10 percent, correspondingly, said Hirsch of the Manpower survey.