EDMONTON—ATCO Group employees have been hit by another round of layoffs almost three years after the company announced similar belt-tightening measures.

Employees from ATCO Power and ATCO Electric — both owned by the ATCO Group — have received termination notices, confirmed Christine Robinson, a business manager at the Canadian Energy Workers Association (CEWA).

CEWA is the union representing ATCO employees in Alberta, Yukon and the Northwest Territories.

“Both companies are reducing employees and our members,” said Robinson. “It’s province-wide and it’s really difficult right now.”

“It’s just a very difficult time with the uncertainty and people looking for stability,” added Robinson, whose union represents 1,400 members. “It’s also causing a lot of anxiety with the individuals.”

In an email statement to StarMetro, ATCO Group confirmed there had been layoffs.

“We continue to face strong economic headwinds in Alberta and prospects for growth are not materializing,” said Siegfried Kiefer, ATCO Group president and chief strategy officer, in the statement. “It’s not easy, but we must face the reality of the situation, and, unfortunately, that has had an impact on some great employees and the people of this province.”

The Calgary-based company refused to comment on which departments were affected and how many positions had been terminated.

Robinson said the layoffs are “ongoing” and that the union has had a meeting with the provincial labour board discussing employee reductions.

A spokesperson for the union representing more than 1,300 Alberta employees at ATCO Gas, ATCO Pipelines and ATCO Energy Solutions confirmed none of their members had received layoff notices.

“There was a conference call today and our members were informed that there would be no impact to them,” said Danny Burrell, a business agent with the Natural Gas Employees’ Association (NGEA), in a Friday afternoon email statement to StarMetro.

Citing challenging economic conditions, the ATCO Group had previously issued layoff notices in the winter of 2015, adding to a list of Alberta companies that introduced belt-tightening measures in the wake of the recession.

Braden Morrison — an Edmonton-based construction worker who was one of the employees laid off in 2015 — said more than 400 of his co-workers were let go from ATCO Electric at the time.

“There are a lot of people who were kind of out of work for about six months,” he said, noting the construction season low season begins in November, which is around the time the layoffs took place in 2015.

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The $22-billion company has 7,000 employees in oil and gas, electricity and construction.

According to the monthly labour force survey published by Statistics Canada, the unemployment rate in Edmonton dropped from eight per cent to 6.5 per cent year-over-year in May.

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