Prairie/Northwest Territories
Director’s Report-December, 2012
Getting to know the North
Challenges for employers and employees in the
Northwest Territories
Just opened – unrestricted year-round travel to the capital of the Northwest Territories, Yellowknife.
The Deh Cho Bridge on Highway 3 near Fort Providence, Northwest Territories, opened November 30, 2012. This
1.1 km long bridge spans the Mackenzie River and provides year-round access to the capital Yellowknife. The
bridge replaced the prior ferry/ice bridge combination used for river crossing. During freeze-up and break-up, it
was not possible for normal vehicular travel to cross the river.
Any impact the opening of the bridge might have on the future calculation of certain isolated post allowances is
not yet clear. These allowances are calculated by Statistics Canada who gathers the data to calculate employee
allowances that impact certain northern workers.
The purpose of the northern allowances is to facilitate recruitment and retention of qualified staff by recognizing
and calculating the increased cost of living in the North and to offset the cost differential. The northern allowances
impact about 3,500 employees living at approximately 320 northern locations.
The Allowances include (i) Living Cost differential (ii) fuel and utilities differential (FUD), environment allowance
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(EA). Vacation Travel Assistance (VTA) is also available for eligible employees living north of the 60 parallel. It
includes consideration of small population, climate, and access points.
the northern environment and geography
lack of skilled staff
housing issues
costly relocation
Isolated Post Allowances
medical emergencies/travel requirements
quality education
the various time zones within the North and the time difference with Ottawa HQ
reliable access to the internet
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Living and Working in the North - Challenges include:
Prairie/Northwest Territories
Director’s Report-December, 2012
Economic initiatives in the Territory can be hampered by the lack of Infrastructure, modes of
transportation, power, housing, available skilled labour market, and accessible education. Employmentready opportunities exist; however, the need cannot be met solely in the north so employers are obliged
to recruit not just from the limited northern skilled-workers market but primarily from the south.
Land Claims (settled) and Self-Government provides a framework for economic development; there is a
political climate which supports the right of aboriginal governments to co-manage development. This
factor must be taken into consideration.
Economic opportunities exist in terms of discovered and undiscovered deposits of minerals and oil and
gas. Such opportunities are hampered by a lack of infrastructure to allow extraction and transportation
to markets in the south.
Adequate facilities are an issue for operations and in particular connectivity (e.g. fibre optics cable and
band width). In the north, connectivity equates to significant costs. When satellite connections are lost,
all systems go down: internet, ATM machines, air traffic control systems etc.
Staffing Challenges in the North
1. For The Employer:
Recruitment is a serious hurdle. Many potential employees won’t even consider a transfer or move to
the North. This is in part based on assumptions they have about working and living in the north and in
part on the relocation policy. It is capped at $5,000 and although there is some flexibility this is rarely
exercised for an entry-level position. This amount is inadequate to compensate moving costs to the
north.
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A serious illness or accident on the job involving an employee, or even those of a family member, may
require the person to be medivaced to a southern hospital and this cost must be budgeted by the
employer even though it is difficult to estimate. An additional irritant is inadequately trained
government administration staff who handle travel and who have unilaterally cancelled trips because
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Certain jobs that require working in remote areas, such as land surveying, entails unique and dangerous
Job hazards from use of equipment, failure of equipment, weather, lack of communication facilities such
as cell phone or internet, and wildlife. As a result, safety training is critical and, depending on the job,
may include the following kinds of training: working around helicopters, use of fire arms, proper
operation of ATVs, boats and ski-doos. An additional obstacle is that most of these specialized courses
are given “down south” so travel costs must be factored in to the expense of training employees. Yet
training costs are charged to the ordinary operating budget. There is no top-up to acknowledge the
additional expense entailed for northern entities.
Prairie/Northwest Territories
Director’s Report-December, 2012
they misinterpret the Isolated Post directives. Administration staff who are subject-matter specialists in
northern issues routinely move jobs and are replaced by inexperienced staff. Managers are required to
spend extra time and effort on to sort out problems.
In remote communities the average length of service of new employees is 18 to 24 months due to the
unique challenges faced by employees recruited in the south. Recruitment is a continuous exercise
which is negatively impacted by the lack of secondary schools and universities.
When hiring skilled or professional staff, employers compete with each other; both with other levels of
government as well as with other employers. Challenges in this field include: staff attraction/retention,
job requirement for university education, telecommunications, availability of electronic networks,
satellites. The goal of the Government of the Northwest Territories is to achieve workforce
representation of 80% Inuit. Yet, in 2009, 64% of all hires were from the South.
Retention Strategies have been formulated and utilized in some federal government departments. The
employer attempts to provide development opportunities, career paths, and opportunities to build
competencies. This is facilitated by way of distance learning, mentoring and coaching; developmental
assignments, summer work experience for higher-education students and professionals, work-related
training, formal and informal mentorship, stretch assignments, workplace orientation, team building,
recognition programs, fostering a culture of innovation, and providing a vision of the future.
Additional challenges are presented by demographics. The current workforce is aging (40% of workers
are between 45-65); a shrinking population as more people leave the north than move to it; retirements
are looming (21.5% of total employees are eligible to retire in the next 5 yrs but 40% of management
can retire over the next 10 years). Retention of corporate knowledge is big issue as is chronic vacancies
in certain areas. Overall employers are experiencing a 21.5% vacancy rate but this escalates to as high
as 40% depending upon the sector and the remoteness of the community. Yellowknife itself
experiences a 20% vacancy primarily in areas of education and health care. 51% of residents of the NWT
are Aboriginal (73% of which live outside Yellowknife) but only 31% of GNWT employees are aboriginal.
A Northern Labour Pool exists. But there are occupational shortages in key areas: educators, nurses,
social workers, engineers, financial occupations, corporate managers. Competition for Labour exists
between mining, transportation, and resource industries all of whom compete with GNWT and federal
government for skilled labour.
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Housing: there is a general lack of affordable housing but the situation is acute in some regions. Any
employer offering housing has a clear advantage; however, if an employee loses their job, they
simultaneously lose their housing.
Prairie/Northwest Territories
2. For the Employee:
Director’s Report-December, 2012
Certain jobs that require working in remote areas, such as land surveying, entails unique and dangerous
Job hazards. These include, but are not limited to, polar bear and/or grizzly bear encounters or even
helicopter crashes.
Employees are impacted by the high cost of living, lack of housing, family ties in the south, climate, lack
of career opportunities for partners, and the quality/availability of medical services and retention of
medical personnel.
Workers who agree to work in the north will also have to deal with limited education opportunities both
for themselves and their families. The availability and the quality of schooling normally expected in the
rest of Canada can differ significantly in northern Canada and this situation is even more pronounced in
the most isolated communities. Education rates lag: high school graduation is 70% in Yellowknife but
less than 60% in remote areas (across Canada the rate is 76%).
Housing is limited, expensive, or non-existent in some remote communities. In some instances, it is
provided by the employer increasing dependence on a particular job.
In small communities, lose of a job will be common knowledge thereby hampering efforts to find
alternate employment.
Lack of local medical treatment may be due to a vacancy in the medical post or because the person
requires more specialized treatment. People often have to utilize medical clinics because they do not
have a primary doctor. As a result, they may be treated by a variety of doctors not just one which may
not be in the best interests of their long term care. Medical conditions may require northern employees
to travel long distances to get medical care. Medical emergencies requiring long-term care may entail a
lengthy absence from the north for access to treatment, therapy. In a particular instance, an employee
suffered a disabling condition that required medical treatment not available in her community. She
needed to go for medical treatment in the south; she was unable to return to duty as initially projected
due to complications and she was subsequently dismissed for abandonment of duty.
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NWT/Federal council initiated a program to work collaboratively with the Public Service Commission. It
is a fact that employers in the north require personnel to fill a lot of specialist positions and programspecific jobs. Based on general education levels of locals, employers can’t recruit in the north for these
positions. Additional challenges include dealing with term positions and the fact that government
departments routinely swap employees since they are competing for skilled workers and the pool of
skilled workers is very limited.
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Northwest Territories/Federal Council was set up to grapple with these challenges.
Prairie/Northwest Territories
Director’s Report-December, 2012
Development of a Northern Workforce includes the following initiatives:
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Graduate internship program are in place to allow prospective employees to gain experience, as
are summer student and Aboriginal Employment Initiatives (Aboriginal Employees advisory
committee is composed of members from across the territory). Talent Acquisition Strategy – i.e.
recruitment; online job promotion, career website, social media, on-line advertising.
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Employee Development: leadership development (in partnership with the University of Alberta);
emerging, middle, executive managers are identified for development opportunities. Vision is
to enhance skills, prepare for future growth.
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Employers, some of whom must work within the confines of collective agreements, have to do
what they are able to work toward competitive compensation packages taking into
consideration employee benefits and pension provisions.
Recruiting processes are not timely, relocation cap of $5,000 exists, employers often can only staff entry
level positions but not experienced or technically advanced positions, and HR subject matter experts
familiar with the challenges of the north are not available.
Medical Emergencies are particularly traumatic in Isolated Communities:
A serious illness or accident on the job involving an employee, or even those of a family member, may
require a person to be medivaced to a southern hospital and this cost must be borne – often by the
employer - even though it is difficult to estimate and budget for. During that trauma, the employee has
to deal with bureaucracy to arrange the emergency airlift and any time off work. An additional irritant
is inadequately trained government administration staff who handle medical travel. There are instances
in which staff have unilaterally cancelled trips because they misinterpreted the Isolated Post directives.
In addition, support staff who are subject-matter specialists in northern issues routinely move jobs and
are replaced by inexperienced staff. This requires extra time and effort on the part of managers to sort
out problems.
The only society I like is rough and tough, and the tougher the better. There's
where you get down to bedrock and meet human people.
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Robert W. Service
Prairie/Northwest Territories
Director’s Report-December, 2012
A Prairie/Northwest Territories Regional Executive meeting was held in Yellowknife on June 23,2012.
It had been four years since our last
meeting in Yellowknife. The Regional
Executive would like to hold a meeting
in the Northwest Territories
periodically to recognize this large part
of our region.
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Yellowknife
Members
from
various
groups
shared their
Friday
evening
with us.
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Chef Farnsworth brought his own tools and organized the
shopping trip for the Friday evening BBQ. It was a typical
sunny afternoon and evening with long daylight hours.It
is possible to BBQ for hours, and hours in all that
daylight.
Prairie/Northwest Territories
Director’s Report-December, 2012
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Visit to Ragged Ass Road, Yellowknife, Northwest Territories: