Born in Edmonton, but a long-time resident of Calgary, I’m pretty familiar with the rivalry between Alberta’s two largest metro areas.

Applying this to the labour markets of the two cities using annual data released by Statistics Canada last week, it turns out that the two cities have a lot in common, but with a few key differences.

Edmonton has a slight edge over Calgary in terms of its annual unemployment rate which came in at 7.4% last year compared to 7.6% in Calgary. Tied at 6.1% in 2023, the unemployment rate was higher than the year before in both cities. The increase was driven by population and  labour force growth outpacing job growth (see our recent feature on the ‘curious case of Calgary’s labour market’).

Edmonton also had a slight edge over Calgary with regard to growth in the population aged 15 and over where it rose by 5.6% versus 5.3% in Calgary.* Calgary’s population growth, however, contributed to a larger increase in the city’s labour force (i.e., residents with a job or looking for one), up 6.1% versus a more modest rise of 3.0% in Edmonton.

As a result, Calgary’s participation rate (the portion of the population aged 15 and over that is working or looking for work) increased from 71.0% in 2023 to 71.5% last year while it went the other direction in Edmonton, falling from 70.2% in 2023 to 68.5% last year.

The number of jobs also increased more in Calgary, rising 4.4% compared to 1.5% in the provincial capital and 1.8% nationally last year. The cities swapped roles as ‘job creation hot spots’ in 2024, after Edmonton led the charge in 2023 with 5.1% employment growth (vs. 2.9% in Calgary). Since 2019 (pre-pandemic), the cities are in comparable spots with annual employment 11.8% higher in Calgary and 10.7% higher in Edmonton.

In terms of how jobs were spread out across industries last year, the two cities are very similar except for two sectors.

First, there is a somewhat larger proportion of workers in Edmonton in the public administration sector (7% vs. 3%). This is not surprising given that Edmonton is the seat of the provincial government.

Second, Calgary is home to a larger percentage of workers in oil and gas and related industries with the professional, scientific and technical services sector accounting for 14% of the city’s jobs compared to 8% in Edmonton.

Despite the subtle differences, the labour markets of both cities have been creating new jobs, just not fast enough to keep up with population growth and prevent the unemployment rate from going up last year. As a result, of the 35 large metros included in the Labour Force Survey, Calgary had the third highest unemployment rate in 2024 and Edmonton was tied with St. Catharines-Niagara in fourth spot. (Windsor had the highest rate at 8.9% followed by Toronto at 8.0%.).

As noted on Friday, Alberta ended the year on a high note, with job growth surging in December and the unemployment rate falling to the national rate of 6.7%. Calgary ended the year with a 7.5% unemployment rate last month, and Edmonton at 6.8% (three-month moving average)—both down from November.

*These are estimates from the Labour Force Survey based on annual averages. The “official” annual demographic estimates for subprovincial areas (including large metro areas) as of July 1, 2024 will not be available from Statistics Canada until the latter part of May 2025.

Answer to the previous trivia question: Quebec and Manitoba tied for the lowest average unemployment rate last year at 5.4% compared to a national average of 6.4% and 7.0% in Alberta.

Today’s trivia question: In what year was the University of Alberta founded?