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“Regardless of scenario, Canada’s oil and gas industry will add jobs over the next decade.” – Enform, May 2013.

“The Canadian economy could lose as many as 185,000 direct and indirect jobs related to the oil and gas industry.” – Enform, May 2015.

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Talk about an about face.

After years of lamenting the “severe skills shortage” in Canada’s oilpatch, the possibility of extreme oil price volatility in an historically volatile industry was apparently beyond comprehension only two years ago for the organization that addresses human resources issues in the oil and gas industry.

As recently as last fall, the most pressing concerns for HR professionals Canada’s oilpatch — even though crude prices had already plunged 25 per cent from their June peak — were “employee engagement and retention”, “talent recruitment”, and being the “employer of choice.”

More than 75 per cent of the 31 oil and gas companies Enform surveyed were “actively hiring” with almost 20 per cent still intending to replace workers who left.