Calgary Jobs: Layoffs Escalate Amid Probation Trap

CALGARY — Workers in Calgary are staring down a reality check: you can be cut loose in your first 90 days, no warning, no severance, no drama. Just gone. And right now, with energy giants swinging the axe, that 90-day probation window isn't just fine print—it's a trapdoor.

Under the Alberta Employment Standards Code, employers can terminate anyone during probation without notice, as long as the contract spells it out and they're not firing you for something protected under human rights law. Clean, legal, brutal.

The Big Chop

Calgary's energy sector just went through a bloodbath. Imperial Oil axed 900 jobs in September 2025, most of them in Calgary. ConocoPhillips followed with plans to slash its workforce by 20-25% by year's end. These aren't rounding errors. These are entire teams vanishing.

The carnage came on the heels of a City of Calgary Labour Market Review from April 2025 that showed layoffs across the province spiking 7% year-over-year. If you're job hunting? Good luck. The average search is now dragging on for 25 weeks—nearly half a year of résumés and silence.

The Numbers Game

Statistics Canada's December 2025 Labour Force Survey showed Calgary's unemployment rate dropped to 6.8% from 7.3% in November. Sounds good until you realize most of those new jobs are part-time gigs. Not exactly mortgage-paying material.

For young workers aged 15-24? The national unemployment rate hit 13.3% in December 2025. One in eight kids can't find work. The Conference Board of Canada is betting Calgary's GDP will grow 2.8% in both 2025 and 2026, while the City's own Fall 2025 Economic Outlook predicts 7.5% unemployment for the year but expects economic expansion of 2.9% in 2025 and 2.4% in 2026.

Growth without jobs. That math doesn't add up for anyone with rent to pay.

The Blame Game

Premier Danielle Smith isn't shy about pointing fingers. She's been publicly tying the energy sector layoffs to federal government policies, making it clear where she thinks the real villain sits.

Meanwhile, Minister of Jobs, Economy, Trade and Immigration Joseph Schow rolled out the $8 million Alberta Youth Employment Incentive program in September 2025. The pitch: bribe businesses to hire up to 2,500 young Albertans. The Alberta Budget 2025 also threw $135 million at skilled trade and apprenticeship programs, banking on the idea that if you train them, someone will hire them.

The provincial government is folding these moves into its broader Alberta Jobs Strategy 2025-2030. Whether cash incentives can outrun a contracting energy market remains the open question. Economic forecasts and labour surveys will keep tracking the collision between job cuts and job creation.