Diversity Skepticism Hurts Alberta Energy Industry’s Talent Hunt

The age gap in diversity awareness and perceptions threatens the industry’s ability to recruit new generations of employees — as well as the immigrants that make up nearly all of the country’s labor-force growth — at a time of heightened competition for workers, said Karleen Batty, partner and energy markets strategy and transactions leader at EY in Calgary.

“If we don’t do things right to make sure that not only can we attract — but also retain — a diverse workforce, we’re not going to have enough people to do what we need to do in this sector,” Batty said in an interview.

The firm surveyed 261 workers in Alberta’s energy and resources industry. Of the respondents, 59% of respondents were men, while 20% identified as women, with the remainder identified as gender diverse, some other category or chose not to answer.