Report finds Alberta’s ‘fly-in, fly-out’ oilsands workers face significant stress, reluctant to seek help
Global News
A report looking at the mental health of "fly-in, fly-out" workers employed in Alberta's oilsands suggests more needs to be done to help employees deal with significant stress.
A new report looking at the mental health and well-being of “fly-in, fly-out” (FIFO) workers employed in Alberta’s oilsands suggests more needs to be done to help employees deal with significant stress that comes from living in work camps.
“The report I think in many ways solidifies things that people anecdotally know already about the impacts of fly-in, fly-out work on workers’ mental health and well-being,” said Sara Dorow, a sociologist at the University of Alberta who co-authored the report. “I would say that if anything surprised us it was some of the degree to which some of these issues were affecting workers.
“We know already that being away from home and family is difficult… What we didn’t anticipate perhaps is the degree to which people report that being a problem.”
The report saw 72 oilsands workers be interviewed in late 2019 and early 2020 before follow-up interviews were conducted a few months later. Most of those interviewed were workers who arrive from other places in Alberta andacross Canada “for rotations of six to 21 days, living in work camps while working 10- or 12-hour shifts at nearby worksites,” according to the report.
READ MORE: Inside the oilsands site that has seen Canada’s largest workplace COVID-19 outbreak
The study found 87 per of participants reported either some or a lot of stress from being far away from loved ones.
“The difficulty of establishing and maintaining relationships with family, feelings of loneliness and the inability to be at home for family events or emergencies are significant stressors among FIFO workers,” the report reads.
Seventy-seven per cent of the study’s participants reported either some or a lot of stress from living in work camps, either because they felt trapped, had limited or unhealthy food options, poor sleep or other reasons.
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