Extensive flooding affected Southern Alberta in the second half of June. As a result, 300,000 employed Albertans, or 13.5 per cent of the total employed population in the province, lost 7.5 million hours of work during that period. At the same time, 134,000 people, or six per cent of workers, put in 2.4 million additional hours. The net effect was a loss of 5.1 million hours of work. Most hours lost in professional, scientific and technical services, as well as natural resources. There was a net loss in hours worked in all industries, except utilities and public administration. Workers in these industries experienced a small net gain in their hours as a result of the flooding. In some industries, however, the net losses were large. In utilities, 98,000 hours were added to workers’ schedules as a result of the flooding. While 12.9 per cent of utilities workers lost some work time, a similar proportion, that is 13.4 per cent, worked extra hours. Working extra hours was also common in public administration, where 17.7 per cent of workers put in 360,000 more hours. In construction, 7.9 per cent of workers put in 440,000 additional hours in the second half of June, the highest among all industries. At the same time, 13.3 per cent of workers in the industry lost work hours, totalling 787,000, the third highest number of hours lost among all industries. From the The Daily, Tuesday, August 27, 2013.
