More than 5,000 public health jobs, 2,500 government jobs lost in a single day

The UCP has cut up to 5,150 public health-care jobs and counting in a single day.

“This Premier has broken his election promise to protect public health care.”

A further 2,500 employees within the Government of Alberta are being lost as well. The numbers are broken down by labour group below:

• The Alberta Union of Provincial Employees has been informed that up to 5,900 Alberta Health Services and Government of Alberta positions could be cut or contracted out to private providers.
• The Health Sciences Association Alberta has been told up to 1,000 positions held by their members could be cut or contracted out to private providers.
• The United Nurses of Alberta has also learned 750 of its frontline workers will be cut.

“This is Americanization of our health care,” said NDP Official Opposition Health Critic David Shepherd. “The Premier raced to give $4.7-billion to big corporations in a failed experiment that hasn’t created any jobs to date. Now, Albertans that need care will pay dearly for his failure.