Trades schools boom as laid-off oil workers head home

Enrolment in trade schools in Newfoundland and Labrador is booming, all because of the economic downturn in the oil fields of Alberta, according to a CBC report.

A large number of workers from Newfoundland and Labrador are employed in the oilsands, but many are being laid off because of the economic slowdown. Many have returned home to upgrade their skills. One instructor says that he’s never seen such a surge in enrolment.

Private college Academy Canada is reporting that enrolment has increased 20 per cent from the same time last year. In the campus’s steamfitter shop, 75 per cent of the students are apprentices who recently returned from Alberta.