• About
    • Which Energy Mix is this?
  • Climate News Network Archive
  • Contact
The climate news that makes a difference.
No Result
View All Result
The Energy Mix
  • Canada
  • UK & Europe
  • Fossil Fuels
  • Ending Emissions
  • Community Climate Finance
  • Clean Electricity Grid
  • Cities & Communities
SUBSCRIBE
DONATE
  • Canada
  • UK & Europe
  • Fossil Fuels
  • Ending Emissions
  • Community Climate Finance
  • Clean Electricity Grid
  • Cities & Communities
SUBSCRIBE
DONATE
No Result
View All Result
The Energy Mix
No Result
View All Result
  • Canada
  • UK & Europe
  • Fossil Fuels
  • Ending Emissions
  • Community Climate Finance
  • Clean Electricity Grid
  • Cities & Communities
  FEATURED
BP Predicts Faster Oil and Gas Decline as Clean Energy Spending Hits $1.1T in 2022 January 31, 2023
Canada Needs Oil and Gas Emissions Cap to Hit 2030 Goal: NZAB January 31, 2023
Ecuador’s Amazon Drilling Plan Shows Need for Fossil Non-Proliferation Treaty January 31, 2023
Rainforest Carbon Credits from World’s Biggest Provider are ‘Largely Worthless’, Investigation Finds January 31, 2023
Danske Bank Quits New Fossil Fuel Financing January 23, 2023
Next
Prev

Net-Zero Transition Can Open Jobs to Marginalized Groups

June 17, 2022
Reading time: 3 minutes

/Pikist

/Pikist

28
SHARES
 

As Canada’s oilpatch scrambles to fill 2,000+ job openings created by shifting geopolitical and economic winds, new analysis is calling on governments to ensure workers aren’t unduly disrupted by the country’s climate pledges, and that clean energy jobs are available to groups that have been shut out in the past.

While significant investments in STEM education, high tech, and soft skills are required, the Pembina Institute says the valuable skills that workers in Canada’s fossil sector hold today will be “transferrable to emerging clean-energy sectors.”

  • Be among the first to read The Energy Mix Weekender
  • A brand new weekly digest containing exclusive and essential climate stories from around the world.
  • The Weekender:The climate news you need.
New!
Subscribe

However, “alignment may not be perfect, and upskilling may be required,” Pembina adds.

And although “Canada’s net-zero transition offers an opportunity to address long-standing social equity issues in the work force and create a more equitable economy,” Pembina warns that “costs for training and reskilling have been a barrier for many marginalized groups, and newcomers may face difficulties in accessing job opportunities without policy intervention.”

An Ontario rule—exempting earnings from some but not all apprenticeship programs from public housing subsidy calculations—is one example of a policy that is holding workers back. Citing testimony from the president of Carpenters’ Union Local 27, the Toronto Star writes that the union has “repeatedly seen apprentices—who enter the trade via a targeted, 14-week pre-apprenticeship program that recruits specifically from Toronto Community Housing Corp. (TCHC) residents—suddenly quit after their first full year.”

When it investigated this retention issue, the union found that “it boils down to housing rules,” that trainees were resigning “out of fear that their earnings would push their household income above a threshold where their housing subsidy might be reduced or revoked.”

The union is currently petitioning the province for a change in the rules, a move that both Queen’s Park and the TCHC strongly support.

Stressing the need for “more certainty about Canada’s unique path to net-zero,” Pembina urges Ottawa to “chart a clear course” so that Canadians “know where we are going and how fast we are trying to get there.” 

“In order to ensure Canadians and communities are not left behind, part of that planning needs to identify pathways that will result in well-paying jobs across the country,” the report adds.

A failure to provide policy and financial support for those pathways will leave the country stumbling forward on the fumes of a declining oil and gas sector, with young people and immigrants particularly vulnerable to the promise of high wages. 

Reporting on the sudden rebound of Canada’s oil sector after “limping through nearly seven years of collapsing oil prices,” CBC News writes of an industry hungry for both skilled and unskilled labour, and willing to pay top dollar.

The 2,000+ job openings owe substantially to people having “moved on to more stable and secure work, albeit often lower paid,” and to their being “bombarded with messaging that says the oil and gas industry is harmful, and fading in relevance, as the world transitions to greener and cleaner sources of energy,” writes CBC.

Hoping to overcome skittishness over sector volatility and climate impacts, the Canadian Association of Energy Contractors (CAOEC) recently boosted its recommended benchmark minimum wage for land drillers and service rig contractors between 10 and 20%.

It is also looking to hire from “non-traditional” labour pools. “Whether it’s the South Asian community, the Filipino community, Latin community, we’re using different languages to attract people back into this industry and educating them and pushing out the message that there are jobs to be had,” said Gurpreet Lail, president of the Petroleum Services Association of Canada (PSAC). “There is a future in this industry.”

The Alberta government is also looking at easing the rules against temporary foreign workers in the sector. CAOEC president Mark Scholz said that change “might be another alternative that the industry might have to pursue” to maintain its current status of activity.



in Canada, Ending Emissions, Finance & Investment, First Peoples, Jobs & Training, Legal & Regulatory, Sub-National Governments

The latest climate news and analysis, direct to your inbox

Subscribe

Related Posts

Mike Mozart/Flickr
Ending Emissions

BP Predicts Faster Oil and Gas Decline as Clean Energy Spending Hits $1.1T in 2022

February 4, 2023
331
Gina Dittmer/PublicDomainPictures
Canada

Canada Needs Oil and Gas Emissions Cap to Hit 2030 Goal: NZAB

January 31, 2023
196
CONFENIAE
Ending Emissions

Ecuador’s Amazon Drilling Plan Shows Need for Fossil Non-Proliferation Treaty

January 31, 2023
61

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

I agree to the Terms & Conditions and Privacy Policy.

Trending Stories

Mike Mozart/Flickr

BP Predicts Faster Oil and Gas Decline as Clean Energy Spending Hits $1.1T in 2022

February 4, 2023
331
openthegovernment.org

BREAKING: U.S. Senate Passes Historic $369B Climate Package

August 8, 2022
541
Sam Balto/YouTube

Elementary School’s Bike Bus Brings ‘Sheer Joy’ to Portland Neighbourhood

February 5, 2023
261
Lucio Santos/flickr

Canadian Banks Increased Fossil Investment in 2021, Report Card Shows

November 27, 2022
116

Recent Posts

Gina Dittmer/PublicDomainPictures

Canada Needs Oil and Gas Emissions Cap to Hit 2030 Goal: NZAB

January 31, 2023
196
CONFENIAE

Ecuador’s Amazon Drilling Plan Shows Need for Fossil Non-Proliferation Treaty

January 31, 2023
61
Ken Teegardin www.SeniorLiving.Org/flickr

Virtual Power Plants Hit an ‘Inflection Point’

January 31, 2023
125
/snappy goat

Rainforest Carbon Credits from World’s Biggest Provider are ‘Largely Worthless’, Investigation Finds

January 31, 2023
94
Victorgrigas/wikimedia commons

World Bank Climate Reforms Too ‘Timid and Slow,’ Critics Warn

January 31, 2023
42
Doc Searls/Twitter

Guilbeault Could Intervene on Ontario Greenbelt Development

January 31, 2023
132
Next Post
Angie Agostino / Pixabay

Get Set for Decades of Sea Level Rise, Studies Warn

The Energy Mix - The climate news you need

Copyright 2023 © Energy Mix Productions Inc. All rights reserved.

  • About
  • Contact
  • Privacy Policy and Copyright
  • Cookie Policy

Proudly partnering with…

scf_withtagline
No Result
View All Result
  • Canada
  • UK & Europe
  • Fossil Fuels
  • Ending Emissions
  • Community Climate Finance
  • Clean Electricity Grid
  • Cities & Communities

Copyright 2022 © Smarter Shift Inc. and Energy Mix Productions Inc. All rights reserved.

Manage Cookie Consent
To provide the best experiences, we use technologies like cookies to store and/or access device information. Consenting to these technologies will allow us to process data such as browsing behaviour or unique IDs on this site. Not consenting or withdrawing consent, may adversely affect certain features and functions.
Functional Always active
The technical storage or access is strictly necessary for the legitimate purpose of enabling the use of a specific service explicitly requested by the subscriber or user, or for the sole purpose of carrying out the transmission of a communication over an electronic communications network.
Preferences
The technical storage or access is necessary for the legitimate purpose of storing preferences that are not requested by the subscriber or user.
Statistics
The technical storage or access that is used exclusively for statistical purposes. The technical storage or access that is used exclusively for anonymous statistical purposes. Without a subpoena, voluntary compliance on the part of your Internet Service Provider, or additional records from a third party, information stored or retrieved for this purpose alone cannot usually be used to identify you.
Marketing
The technical storage or access is required to create user profiles to send advertising, or to track the user on a website or across several websites for similar marketing purposes.
Manage options Manage services Manage vendors Read more about these purposes
View preferences
{title} {title} {title}