Construction industry drying up, and not just in the desert - By Alexandra Berzon, Las Vegas Sun
Just weeks ago, Harry Tostowaryk was in Las Vegas from Edmonton, recruiting ironworkers to apply for visas to work in the upper reaches of Canada.
Tostowaryk hoped to reel in workers whose jobs were drying up here — the $9.2 billion CityCenter, for example, was shedding ironworkers as the heavy framework there was finishing up, and work on the $5.2 billion Echelon had been halted indefinitely.
Canadian oil construction seemed a relative bright spot as Tostowaryk made his pitch.
He told workers that living in remote camps hundreds of miles from Edmonton is, to put it nicely, the opposite of claustrophobic. But there is satellite TV.
Don’t forget your long johns.
Alberta had about $126 billion in projects planned, according to reports. Even the highest Strip estimates never approached that number.
But now the hope of finding work is fading, even in Alberta.