OTTAWA (APP)- Canada’s oil-rich Alberta province is expecting to shed 31,800 jobs this year, the province’s government said late Tuesday in a fiscal update, as a result of a plunge in oil prices.
Resource revenues are also forecast to be down more than $500 million from its budget forecast, it said.
But Alberta is still projecting a small budgetary surplus and positive jobs growth this year due to gains made ahead of the oil slump, when it accounted for half of all jobs created in Canada.
World oil prices have fallen more than 50 percent since June 2014.
Several oil firms have reacted by slashing employment and delaying spending on new projects.
Shell was the latest on Monday to inform regulators that it was halting work on its Pierre River mine in northern Alberta’s oil sands, which hold the world’s third largest oil reserve.
