The Regional Municipality of Wood Buffalo is the heart of Alberta’s oil sands development. It’s also the one region that has made significant progress in measuring rotational workers and camps in and around the community.

This leads us to our last fact on Alberta’s rotational workforce!

Fact #7: There are nearly 50,000 rotational workers in the Regional Municipality of Wood Buffalo.

As the oil sands experienced rapid development in 2007-08, the number of rotational workers and camp accommodations increased significantly too. In the Regional Municipality of Wood Buffalo, camps became a necessity as the need for construction and operations workers far exceeded the availability of housing and land available for development.

In 2012, a telephone survey of over 1,800 workers conducted during the municipal census provided a demographic profile of the rotational workforce in the region. The census also allowed the municipality to estimate the number of workers living in rotational work camps. The number? 39,271.

In 2014, this number was updated to 46,686 rotational workers living in project accommodations. And this count was recorded in June, low season for oil and gas activity, so it’s quite likely the number of rotational workers living in camps is even higher during periods of greater activity.

Want to know more? Download the report!

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