With job rankings finishing many of you have secured jobs for the spring term and can now relax, while others, like me, now suffer through continuous job postings. However I’m not concerned with how or when you get your job, it’s the location that I’m writing about. Most people I’ve spoken to seem to have the wrong impression about the West, so I thought I would take this chance to set the record straight. I was raised in Alberta, and I have since spent two of my work terms there. I would like to offer my opinion based on my experiences, and some personal research as to what it is like to work in Western Canada.
Calgary is a very large city without as much of the big city feel. It’s larger than Toronto despite having less than half the population. The nightlife is centered on the downtown area which is easy enough to get to but is a little more mature than you would find in Toronto or Vancouver. Edmonton is similar to Calgary, only with a pretty killer mall. There are not many attractions around the Alberta cities except for the mountains. The Rockies are only an hour and a half away from Calgary, and a more grueling four hours from Edmonton. They make for excellent skiing in the winter, and good hiking or mountain biking in the summer. I like Vancouver, it’s a beautiful city and it borders on the mountains but for whatever reason, people here treat Vancouver like it is the Promised Land. Well it’s not, it rains all the time, it’s expensive, and the hockey team sucks. Not that any of that should stop you from going, only people should go there with the right frame of mind.
Let’s talk about money. I’ll get into the numbers in a minute; first we have to divide up the West a little. Most of the engineering work in British Columbia is in Vancouver so I will focus on them. Likewise for Alberta, most engineering students will be Calgary bound, unless they have been drafted by one of the oil companies, in which case they’re most likely headed north of the 57th to our third category: Fort McMurray and the Territories. Now for the numbers; if you’re on one of your first three work terms you can expect to make a little over $20 in Calgary and about $19 around Vancouver, contrast this to the $17.85 that’s the cumulative average for engineering. For the last three work terms, Calgary’s average is roughly $27 and Vancouver is a more meager $24, compare that to the total average of $23.69. So you’re making a little more, but it’s not quite the fat stacks I know you were hoping for; to get that will have to go to oil money, and that’s Fort McMurray and the North. I have not been able to get any figures for the territories, but I have been told that they are comparable to Fort McMurray. The average salary in Fort McMurray for the first three terms is $24.51 and $29.11 for the last three. That’s pretty good but there are a few things you need to keep in mind. Firstly, things up north are more expensive; big items like paper towels get a little ridiculous and fast food is expensive because they have to offer a Fort Mac wage, but the rise in prices gets softened by Alberta’s five percent GST. The second thing is that most of the companies in Fort Mac will give you free housing, and that’s because housing there is extremely expensive. If you are forced to rent a room you can expect to pay around $800 a month, so make sure you ask about that in any interview you may have. The other thing to keep in mind is that companies in Alberta above the 57th parallel are required by the government to give their workers a northern allowance for working up north. This is about 14 percent, and can be directly added to your hourly wage or given as an allowance on a biweekly basis. I enjoyed my term in Fort McMurray and I would recommend it to anyone who has the opportunity to go. It’s actually a rather large town; they have plenty of restaurants, a great recreational facility, golf course, and even a casino. The work days are long but the work load is good and the money is exceptional.
Now that we have the money part out of the way, I’ll quickly go over job satisfaction, and then I’ll get into housing. Overall job satisfaction numbers out west were very good, with the majority of people ranking their job somewhere in the range of eight to ten, and only a handful of people saying it was worse than a seven. The job satisfaction in Calgary and Vancouver were slightly higher with most people ranking their job a nine out of ten. Northwestern Canada was on par with the average with almost everyone ranking their job a seven or better.
My housing experience in Fort McMurray was very good with Suncor; I received a private bathroom, dishwasher, and even a lazy maid service. I’ve also had the chance to see the co-op housing for Syncrude which is also a step above the average student housing. Smaller companies further up north may agree to take on part of a student’s rent, or otherwise giving a housing allowance, in either case it is important for you to do your own research to determine how much you may be paying. Housing in Calgary had a bad rep a few years ago and although it has since recovered, it still hasn’t cleared its name. You can live downtown where it is expensive, or you can get a decent place in some pseudo ghetto suburbia for $450, a little more if you want some amenities. British Columbia on the other hand is a little more expensive, after a quick Kijiji search it’s hard to find a room for less than $550, and a lot more if you want some privacy. Keep in mind that for the cheapest prices you may find yourself in a real ghetto around Vancouver’s east end.
To finish off I would like to encourage any of you whom have the opportunity to take a job out west, to seize that opportunity. The money is good, the people are friendly, and you may not get the chance to live and work in the other half of this country again.
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