Research reveals major untapped employment opportunity in Alberta, B.C., and Saskatchewan. Cleaning up Western Canada’s unplugged and unremediated oil and gas wells could create 11,000 full-time jobs over the next 25 years, finds a landmark study from Jobs for Today.
“Canada has a significant chance to create good, family supporting jobs while reducing emissions and pollution,” says Lee Loftus of International Association of Heat & Frost Insulators & Allied Workers Local 118. “Government needs to lead the restoration economy waiting on Canada’s doorstep.”
The report, Jobs in Oil and Gas Well Cleanup in Alberta, B.C. and Saskatchewan, is the first ground-up assessment of labour demand in the well cleanup sector in Western Canada. Drawing on interviews with workers and contractors from 10 cleanup firms, it estimates that completing the remaining lifecycle work on the region’s approximately 381,000 unplugged wells would require around 281,000 job-years of work.
Environmental and health stakes are high. Unplugged wells leak methane, benzene, and other hazardous compounds, putting the country’s air, farmland, climate and drinking water at risk, while denying thousands of workers access to employment. Companies committed to this closure work when they drilled the majority of their wells, today totalling more than 700,000 wells across Western Canada. Yet many companies have deferred or avoided this work. Some have gone bankrupt, leaving taxpayers to cover the costs.
The report calls on governments to hold companies accountable to their legal cleanup obligations, enforce higher labour standards to ensure the work delivers decent, well-paying jobs, and strengthen cleanup requirements to protect communities and the environment. Further regulatory action will be essential to unlock Canada’s untapped oil and gas well restoration economy.
