Oil & Gas
Baby boom echoes in the patch
- Details
- Category: Oil & Gas
- Written by Graham Chandler
New crop of engineers and geoscientists is set to emerge
Fifteen years ago, University of Toronto professor David K. Foot penned a bestseller with a title that’s become a household term: Boom, Bust and Echo, which forecasts the social and economic effects of the baby boom. As if on cue, thousands of engineers and geoscientists in Alberta’s energy industry face retirement, and efforts are stepping up to replace an expected serious labour shortfall in those professions.
In its March 2011 update on the state of the oil and gas labour market, the Petroleum Human Resources Council of Canada (PHRCC) had some jaw-dropping forecasts. Hiring projections for 2010-2020 were calculated for three energy pricing scenarios: low oil/low gas, growth oil/low gas ($90-$115 per barrel of crude and current gas prices) and growth oil/growth gas ($90-$115 oil and $10-$15 per thousand cubic feet of gas by 2020). Total hiring needs expected? Estimates call for about 2,300, 3,000 and 7,400 engineers and in the neighbourhood of 1,200, 1,400 and 1,900 geosciences professionals, respectively, under the three outlooks.
Startling numbers, to be sure.
“The timing might vary a bit from discipline to discipline, but the critical shortages appear to be in petroleum, civil, electrical and mechanical engineering,” figures Len Shrimpton, chief operating officer of the Association of Professional Engineers, Geologists and Geophysicists of Alberta (APEGGA). “The geosciences problem does not seem to be as acute.”
With the upswing in heavy oil projects now, he says industry is complaining it can’t find the types of skilled workers needed, “And it wouldn’t take that many more to make it a huge problem. Alberta’s economy could be ser-iously dampened.”
PLANNING AHEAD
It’s certainly not going unnoticed. PHRCC provides up-to-date data and market-based analyses to help industry plan its hiring. “That is key,” says Cheryl Knight, the council’s executive director and chief executive officer.
“The second thing is our CareersinOilandGas.com web portal and career awareness programs.” Knight explains that the website offers occupational summaries for career counsellors and high-level summaries for young people to get a flavour for the job. It also provides skills assessment tools to help people test their aptitudes for different oil and gas occupations.
And steering youth to the site has gone modern, she notes. “We are using more social media—Twitter and Facebook. We also have a specialized newsletter, and we are creating a job board.”
Other outreach efforts include presentations to schools, post-secondary institutions and aboriginal groups. “We do a lot of work with immigrant and aboriginal organizations,” says Knight. “And we’re targeting women in oil and gas.”
She notes that immigrants make up eight per cent of the industry’s core occupations, “But when you look at the number of immigrants in the workforce that are in those occupations that we hire for, there is about 20 per cent.”
UPGRADED AND EXPANDED
APEGGA has been upgrading its outreach program for several years and is now expanding it. “We’re formalizing relationships with school boards at more strategic levels like the super-intendent level,” says Shrimpton.
“More importantly, we’re mounting a significant enhancement to encourage both women and aboriginals. We are building a funding partnership with the Alberta government, the federal government and, we hope, half-a-dozen Alberta corporations.”
APEGGA’s program has two components: going into schools to talk about engineering and geosciences, and having that backed up with a significant online presence. Looking at the long term, Shrimpton says the school outreach is crucial at two levels.
“First, you’ve got to keep kids in math and sciences at the elementary level,” he says. “Then at some point you’ve got to turn them on specifically to our professions.” This usually happens in junior high, according to Shrimpton.
“And during that period we are enhancing our mentoring program, especially in the aboriginal community because they don’t have the support systems other students do. We have started that on a limited basis in Edmonton and Calgary, but we hope to expand it to more rural areas soon.”
Industry likes it: many companies volunteer speakers because they want to have their employees out in the community. “We are hearing that it fits their community investment strategies to a tee,” says Shrimpton.
APEGGA is also a patron sponsor of WinSETT—the Canadian Centre for Women in Science, Engineering, Trades and Technology—which has a mandate to encourage more women to pursue leadership roles in these fields. Together they’re developing a series of seminars. “They have the understanding to set up the seminars and we have the ability to expose our members to them,” says Shrimpton.
UNIVERSITIES BUY IN
Alberta universities are stepping up, too. “Because of expected increase in demand, in 2006-2007 the Schulich School of Engineering started taking extra students in oil and gas engineering,” says Anil Mehrotra, interim dean at the University of Calgary faculty. “The school increased enrolment from 16 to 40.”
Added to that were another 40 spots for petroleum minors. “These are chemical and mechanical engineering students whose training is applicable in the oilpatch.”
TWO KEY POINTS TO PONDER
1. Hiring projections for engineers and geosciences professionals over the coming decade are as low as 3,500
and as high as 9,300, according to
the Petroleum Human Resources Council of Canada.
2. As oilsands projects begin to ramp up again, industry is starting to talk about the lack of skilled workers. A labour shortage could very quickly put the brakes on Alberta’s economic growth.
Mehrotra adds that in the future they may look at increasing enrolment in the master’s and PhD programs to meet demand for more highly qualified personnel.
In the University of Calgary’s geosciences department, it seems the boom is already on.
“We are already seeing that increased demand,” says Adam Pidlisecky, assistant professor. “We’re on the order of 400 [undergraduates] in the geosciences program.”
He says they’re graduating about 40 geophysics students a year, “pretty well at max capacity.” Increases in the number of geology students are seen as well. “And we are seeing a lot more demand both in thesis-based and course-based master’s degrees.”
The department’s approach of exposing students to industry helps steer them towards oilpatch professions as well. “In our field program, students work in teams and their final evaluation takes place at an industry presentation downtown,” says Pidlisecky.
“So they’re face to face with leading industry geophysicists. We align the teaching goals of the course with what industry is looking for in future hire candidates. It cuts down lag times [between industry feedback and course content] by getting direct interface with industry,” he adds, noting that for the students, the course is also a chance to job network.
At the University of Alberta, working with industry has also become the rule, not the exception.
“We’ve created a one-year, course-based master’s between us and the geology department called integrated petroleum geosciences,” explains Doug Schmitt, professor of geophysics. “In its second year now, it has gotten industry support, for example [from] ConocoPhillips. Industry sends their promising graduates onto the program.”
Schmitt says they also organize seminars where industry geophysicists talk to the students about their career paths and what they do.
It all helps students choose an energy discipline after graduation. Some careers worth examining: “Where we’re seeing increased demand is cost-control engineers, mining engineers, and electrical or instrumentation engineers,” offers PHRCC’s Knight. “And, as industry gets more involved in unconventional resources, increased demand for geoscientists for those complex basins will be required.”
Schulich’s Mehrotra encourages prospective engineering students. “There’s a strong demand for engineers in Alberta,” he says. “This year, the number of our students on paid internship rose to 276 from 220.”
And for prospective geophysicists, U of A’s Schmitt says it’s a secure and long-term career, so go for it. “The students who have done that always seem to stay in geophysics—and there’s going to be a shortage.”
PLAYERS ON THE STAGE
1. Association of Professional Engineers, Geologists and Geophysicists of Alberta (www.apegga.com)
2. Petroleum Human Resources Council of Canada (www.petrohrsc.ca)
3. Schulich School of Engineering
(www.eng.ucalgary.ca)
4. University of Alberta (www.ualberta.ca)
GOING BROADER, DEEPER
1. Careers in Oil and Gas (www.CareersinOilandGas.com)
2. Canadian Centre for Women in Science, Engineering, Trades and Technology (www.ccwestt.org/WinSETT/tabid/56/Default.aspx)
FEEDBACK
Do you think enough is being done to deal with the effects of the coming wave of baby boomer retirements?
Let us know at This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. .
