Albertans know all too well that neither booms nor busts last forever. That's why savvy companies are using the oilpatch downturn as an opportunity to play catch-up, positioning themselves for the energy economy's eventual comeback.

Crude oil is pumped from a facility near Halkirk, Alta., in June 2007. A commodities bust offers Alberta firms the chance to retool after the recent boom years. (Larry MacDougal/Canadian Press)

Until recently, construction and service firms struggled to keep pace as oil prices above US$140-per-barrel fuelled frenzied development in the oilsands and fierce competition for labour.

Now with activity slowing down substantially, those companies can build some much-needed infrastructure at a lower cost than they would have mere months ago.

And they can boost their ranks with the best and brightest workers, who aren't as scarce — or as picky — as they used to be.

"Now's the time to get your infrastructure in place and get your team all geared up so that when it picks up again here soon, you're good to go," said Scott Stoppler, president of recruiting firm Executrade, which has offices in Edmonton and Calgary.

Time to rebuild

Bleak news has been dominating the headlines in Alberta recently. The provincial government has said it expects 15,000 jobs to be shed this year and it seems not a day goes by without another onslaught of oilpatch layoffs.

The trend in Alberta, the former engine of economic growth in Canada, mirrors a worsening jobs picture nationally, with growing unemployment and plant closures in the auto, forestry and manufacturing sectors.

On Friday, Statistics Canada is set to report a likely jump in the current 7.2 per cent jobless rate for February, after 213,000 lost jobs since November that pushed unemployment up a full percentage point. Many economists predict Canada's jobless rate could approach nine per cent before a recovery expected next year.

Stoppler expects recently announced economic stimulus packages will help staunch the flow of lost jobs, as workers who would have been employed by the energy industry join major public works projects such as power plants, sewers and bridges, ports and highways.

"Firms that do that heavy-duty infrastructure construction work are going to get very busy," said Stoppler.

'Not only are they [firms] getting their choice of talent, which of course that wasn't the case in the past couple of years, but they're getting their choice of talent at salaries they can afford.'—Shannon Bowen-Smed, Bowen employment agency

Edmonton engineering company Stantec Inc. and Toronto-based construction giant Aecon Group Inc. are a few of the companies poised to take advantage of $12 billion in new infrastructure spending announced as part of the federal budget in January.

And Aecon signalled an optimistic outlook in Western Canada with its recent acquisition of Edmonton-based Lockerbie & Hole, which caters largely to Alberta's energy industry.

AltaLink, a Calgary-based company that owns and operates the majority of the province's electricity transmission system, has been actively recruiting new workers at job fairs and through employment agencies throughout the recession. The company has had a hard time keeping up with the province's rampant population growth, and now it can finally work on meeting that electricity demand by improving its system.

"We're potentially using a slowing economy as an opportunity to catch up to the growth that Alberta's experienced over the last five to 15 years and get the much-needed facilities in place," said Scott Schreiner, the company's manager of communications.

"The cost to build some projects may be down because commodity prices are down and competition for labour is not as fierce."

With a workforce of about 400, AltaLink has about 15 or 20 open positions posted on its website. Schreiner said AltaLink needs everything from power line technicians to office workers and accountants.

A lot of workers recently let go from their jobs in the oilpatch might be able to parlay some of their skills — like electrical engineering — into utilities like AltaLink, Schreiner added.

"Finding the right people and having them have the right training has always been difficult," he said. "Currently we're seeing a few more resumes because of the economy that's out there, but it's still tough competition and we're still out looking for more people to fill these roles."

No longer just 'warm bodies'

Until recently it was clearly a job seeker's market, where a company could easily lure skilled workers away from the competition with higher pay and other perks.

Now the dynamic is shifting as firms that were "literally hiring warm bodies" a few months ago can now be more selective in who they add to their team, said Shannon Bowen-Smed, chief executive of the Bowen employment agency in Calgary.

"Not only are they getting their choice of talent, which of course that wasn't the case in the past couple of years, but they're getting their choice of talent at salaries they can afford," she said.

Bowen-Smed says most of the businesses she deals with intend to keep hiring university and college students for summer internship programs.

"I think they're smart enough to remember when they eliminated those programs in the '80s and '90s, it's a big part of why we don't have 10 and 20-year engineers in the marketplace," she said.

During the recession, the Alberta business community should focus on training people in trades that are expected to be in high demand in the future, said Elsbeth Mehrer, the manager of workforce development for the Calgary economic development department.

"If we come out of this economic downturn with the same skill set we came into it with, we're not going to be any further ahead in terms of our longer-term labour situation and we know that five years from now, 10 years from now, we are going to have far more jobs than we have people to fill them," she said.