The trades in general are still hurting all over Alberta, not just welding. Edmonton has weathered the storm quite a bit better than other cities, but between reduced hours, wage cuts, hiring freezes, short term positions, and being undercut not only by other cities, but other provinces, it's still pretty ugly out there for tradesmen in Edmonton.

I've been hearing things are "picking up" since 2015. Every spring, this is going to be 'the' year things pick back up, but I haven't seen it. For every shop that's busy there's five that are dead in the water. For every tradesmen with a job now, there are 50 others still sitting at home. That's the big problem. Next week is August, peak season is over, if things were going to pick up this year it would have happened 4-5 months ago. Nothing is going to pick up after September.

You aren't seeing positions being posted online because companies don't need to post those positions anymore. Any company worth it's weight will still have their core guys, guys they try to keep busy or at least keep in touch with to bring back when they get work. Those core guys have 5, 10, 15 friends who are all ready to work tomorrow. Most hiring going on right now is going to be through word of mouth because they know they can trust their core guys to bring in good people versus wading through hundreds of resumes for maybe 2-3 guys who will be a good fit.