As outlined on Friday in our Weekly Wrap, job growth in Alberta has been outpacing the national rate.

Today’s Owl digs into some of the sources of that growth and how they differ.

Between April 2023 and April 2024, 92,000 jobs were created in Alberta for a year-over-year growth* rate of 3.8%.

Nationally, the country added 377,000 jobs for a more modest increase of 1.9%.

As such, Alberta accounted for a quarter of all jobs created in the country despite representing less than 12% of Canada’s working age population.

One of the reasons for the outsized job growth in Alberta is strong growth in the goods-producing sector with this category growing by 6.2% in Alberta while it contracted by 0.2% nationally.

Alberta also outpaced the country as a whole with regard to services-producing jobs with growth of 3.0% versus 2.4% nationally.

Growth in private sector employment in Alberta was red hot at 6.5% compared to just 1.4% nationally.

Although still strong at 3.1%, public sector** employment growth in Alberta was lower than the 4.9% posted in the country as a whole.

Self-employment, meanwhile, decreased by 7.5% in Alberta versus 0.8% nationally.

Overall, year-over-year job growth in Alberta has been stronger than in the country as a whole with gains in both the goods-producing and services-producing sectors and in both private and public sector employment  contributing in Alberta.

It’s a different story nationally with the number of goods-producing jobs declining and only lukewarm private sector job growth.

*All references to % change in today’s Owl refer to the change between April 2023 and April 2024 using the seasonally-adjusted Labour Force Survey data released by Statistics Canada on May 10.

**Those who work for a local, provincial or federal government, for a government service or agency, a crown corporation, or a government funded establishment such as a school (including universities) or hospital.

Answer to the previous trivia question: There were 363,112 births in Canada in 2023.

Today’s trivia question: Which province had the highest unemployment rate in April?