St. Albert has temporarily laid off roughly 30 per cent of its workforce, in response to COVID-19.
In an emailed statement, chief administrative officer Kevin Scoble said due to closures and cancellations of city facilities and programs, the city had no work for about 300 temporary and hourly workers.
The laid-off workers were in positions such as lifeguards, childcare workers, fitness instructors, food service workers, theatre workers and guest services.
“We provided these workers notice of temporary layoff, which occurred on March 17 and March 23 and represented approximately 30 per cent of our workforce, and we hope to bring them back as soon as circumstances allow,” Scoble wrote.
The Gazette requested an interview with Scoble, which was not granted. In response to a follow-up question about what financial savings the layoffs represent, communications advisory Juliann Cashen said in an e-mail the city is analyzing budget scenarios related to the pandemic but has not finalized those results yet.
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Canadian Union of Public Employees (CUPE) Local 941 represents city staff in public works, transit, utilities and environment and engineering. President Brett MacDonald said in an email he has “nothing to say on this matter at the moment.”
Other municipalities across Alberta have taken similar measures, and on Monday Edmonton announced it was temporarily laying off over 2,000 employees, including library staff. Earlier this past week, Calgary announced 1,200 of its staff face similar layoffs.
No layoffs at St. Albert library
St. Albert libraries are not laying off any staff, despite the physical closure of both its locations, and chief executive officer Peter Bailey said in an interview they are “busier than ever.”
“Some staff are busier than ever, and we haven't laid anyone off at this time. Any decisions on that would be in consultation with our library board,” he said.
Most of the library’s 60 total staff have transitioned to working from home, but they are working around the clock transitioning offerings to digital formats.
“We've ramped up our digital offering in terms of collections,” Bailey said. “We've got e-books of course, which we've devoted a lot more funds to, (and) streaming resources.”
Bailey has authorized an increase of $10,000 to ordering e-books.
One of the measures St. Albert Public Library took immediately following closure of its brick-and-mortar locations was introducing a digital membership, which Bailey said demand for has been “incredible.” In total, 124 people have taken out those new memberships.
“It is a big uptake, we are pretty impressed with the number of people,” Bailey said.
