Canada is experiencing one of its largest ever labour shortages and more than 30,000 of those unfilled positions in Q3 this year were in Alberta.

But the boom-and-bust oil and gas sector is finding the shortage tougher to deal with as workers are becoming reluctant to stay in a volatile and maligned industry.

Jason Edwards, VP of the David Aplin Group Calgary, told CityNews that some former employees are still nervous about heading back.

“Some of the workers that were in the field in oil and gas, they’re used to making higher levels of compensation than are available now and some of them are actually, quite frankly, a little jilted from the downturn as well so they’re not necessarily in the same kind of rush to get back to that kind of work as they were previously,” he said.

There are a couple other factors as well: Roles are either very technical, so employers are having trouble finding qualified employees; and some companies are running into the opposite problem -- they’re offering entry level jobs that don’t pay the kind of salaries potential applicants expect.