[LINK] "N.L. oil industry avoiding Alberta-style job losses"

[rfmcdonald]

CBC News' Terry Roberts suggests that the slowdown in the Canadian oil economy has had less of an impact in Newfoundland than in Alberta, mainly because the offshore oil of Newfoundland is less labour-intensive than Alberta's land-based extraction.

Newfoundland and Labrador's oil industry is cutting costs and deferring some capital spending, but has avoided Alberta-style cuts that have resulted in thousands of job losses.

A recent report estimated some 35,000 Alberta oilsands jobs have disappeared in the last year. That's from a directed workforce estimated at nearly 150,000 in 2014.

The axe has not come down quite so hard on oil jobs in this province, where an estimated 10,000 people work directly in the industry.

"We're talking in the 100 range as opposed to tens of thousands of [job losses] in Western Canada," said Paul Barnes of the Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers.