Alberta has added roughly 79,000 jobs in the year leading up to June 2026, making it Canada's jobs leader—but the province's traditional economic engine, the energy sector, isn't behind the surge. According to a new RBC Economics report published August 6, 2026, the growth has instead come from healthcare and social assistance along with public administration, driven by years of explosive population growth that strained essential services.
Employment in Alberta rose 3% year-over-year, outpacing every province except Prince Edward Island. In comparison, Ontario added 65,000 jobs but only saw a 0.8% increase, while Quebec and British Columbia saw job numbers decline outright. Nearly three-quarters of Alberta's new positions were full-time roles—58,500 full-time versus 20,100 part-time—with most in the private sector. Healthcare and social services alone accounted for 55,000 new jobs, one of the largest annual increases the sector has ever recorded in the province. Meanwhile, jobs in forestry, fishing, mining, quarrying, and oil and gas extraction—mostly oil and gas in Alberta—changed little over the past year, even as the energy sector benefited from strong production and robust export demand.
The report finds that advances in technology, automation, and operational efficiency have enabled energy producers to expand output without adding jobs as they did in the past. Alberta's population surged by more than 570,000 between Q2 2022 and Q2 2026—a gain of over 13% and the largest among provinces—placing "substantial pressure on health care and other public services," according to RBC economist Salim Zanzana. Between 2022 and 2025, growth in Alberta's healthcare workforce didn't keep pace with population growth, resulting in a decline in healthcare and social assistance workers per capita. More recently, however, the report notes that slower population growth combined with stronger hiring have reversed that decline.
Why hasn't Alberta's jobs boom brought down unemployment? The report argues that the province's unemployment rate—hovering between 6.5% and 7% in recent months—has more to do with an imbalance between labour force growth and job creation than underlying economic weakness. Simply put, employment hasn't grown fast enough to absorb rapid population growth. But that gap is closing. Demographic growth has slowed sharply from more than 4% in 2024 to just 0.9% in Q1 2026 year-over-year, and the unemployment rate has dropped from above 8% in August 2025. Net international migration turned negative in Alberta in Q1 2026 for the first time since Q3 2020, while interprovincial migration has also moderated compared to 2022–2024.
RBC expects Alberta's unemployment rate to trend lower—from 7% to 6.5% by the end of 2026, and down to 6% by the end of 2027—as population growth continues to normalize and the labour market returns to better balance. But there's a caveat: an aging population is expected to keep demand for healthcare and public service workers high, meaning employment growth in these sectors could stay resilient even as broader demographic pressures ease. Alberta's jobs story has shifted—it's no longer just about oil and gas, and that change looks set to stick.