WATCH ABOVE: With falling oil prices, people are thinking twice before buying big ticket items like RVs, boats and ATVs. Eric Szeto reports.
EDMONTON — The impacts of slumping oil prices are being felt throughout Alberta, and the apprehension of some consumers is being felt at the Edmonton RV Expo.
The annual trade show was in its second day at the Edmonton Expo Centre Saturday. Attendance this weekend is down about 30 per cent so far over last year, and vendors have noticed a bit of hesitation from potential buyers.
“There are some people who work directly in the oil field that are cautious of spending more money, because even if they’re making money right now they don’t know if six months from now they will be,” said Kyle MacRae with Go RV & Marine in Nisku.
“You never know where the bottom is,” said Dean Ericson, who came to check out the show Saturday. Ericson doesn’t work in the oil industry, but admits he’s been watching the price of oil closely.
“It’s always unexpected; you don’t know what’s going to come down the road, so there’s always the hesitancy.”
Gripped in the throes of a collapse in oil prices, warnings of tough financial times have been clear over the past few months.
“The circumstances that we are in are the most serious financial circumstances we have seen in this province in 25 years, if not 50,” Premier Jim Prentice said in January. “And certainly, it will affect every Albertan.”
READ MORE: ‘Prices are not going to bounce back:’ Prentice gloomy about quick oil recovery
But while the message has been mostly doom and gloom, the manager of the RV Expo says sales have held steady, and he’s optimistic the hesitation from consumers won’t last.
“Yes, there will be a slowdown,” said Dan Merkowsky, “but we understand that it’ll come back again; Alberta always does. We might not see as many customers this year, but we know that a year or two down the road we’ll be going full blast again.”
There have been some encouraging signs in recent days. On Friday, new job numbers from Statistics Canada showed the job market in Alberta held firm in the face of falling crude prices last month.
The province did lose 1,000 jobs in the resource sector, where oil and gas workers are counted. But Alberta, which accounted for roughly one in three new jobs created in Canada last year, remained the country’s employment growth leader in the first month of 2015.
With files from Eric Szeto, Jamie Sturgeon, Global News.
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