==More lost jobs for Canadians
Alberta looks to Germany to fill labour shortage
CBC News
To fill a shortage of tradespeople, Alberta is turning to Germany, a country the province says has a high unemployment rate among skilled workers.
Employers are setting up exhibits at job fairs in the western German city of Essen Monday and in the capital Berlin on Wednesday.
The federal and provincial governments helped organize the job fairs and are charging companies $1,000 to take part in the events, with the businesses also paying their own travel and hotel costs.
Terry Jorden, spokesperson for Alberta's Department of Employment, Immigration and Industry, said the governments are targeting Germany's skilled workers.
"In the case of Germany, we learned that there were quite a number of unemployed tradespeople, and that's exactly the folks that we needed."
Worth the price tag: cabinetmaker
Rod Roll, who owns a custom woodworking business in northeast Calgary called Executive Millwork Inc., said he's going because his efforts to find workers close to home have been fruitless.
For the past couple of years, he's been advertising in newspapers, both locally and across the country, for skilled cabinetmakers, but he just can't find the people he needs.
Now he's going to see if he can convince a few workers in Germany to join his company and he plans to promote more than just work.
"We're close to the mountains. We've got skiing, we've got hiking, lots of the natural things, we've got lots of open space. That's part of the mandate that I'm taking over there, that Calgary's a pretty dynamic place to live."
Roll says if he can find at least two experienced cabinetmakers to come back to Alberta, the expense will have been worth it.
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