Alberta Productivity Growth is Low

I pointed out in this post that that Alberta's GDP growth of late was mainly due to population growth, not productivity growth (GDP growth of 3.9% in 2013 versus population growth of around 3.2%). That's still better than Ontario's. That amount of rapid population growth makes it hard to integrate everyone into high productivity jobs. Plus Alberta has been a big user of low wage TFWs, which is pretty much the best way to lower your per person productivity.

Here's a National Post article that basically says the same thing:

"Alberta’s oil sector may have been a “job machine” over the past decade, but it came in “dead last” in labour productivity growth compared to other North American oil-producing jurisdictions, according to a report.

During the 2001-2012 period, Alberta ranked last with respect to its average growth rate in real per worker GDP and second last in real per capita GDP, said Fraser Institute analysts in a report published Thursday.

The two indicators show that much of the province’s economic growth is coming from expanding inputs like labour “rather than improving the productivity (and thus income) of individual workers,” the Vancouver-based think tank said."

If even Alberta has low productivity growth, Canada's as a whole is in trouble.