As always, those that make up our Top 50 this year are a diverse group, ranging from car rental companies like Enterprise to retailers like Wal-Mart, a multinational often portrayed as a foe of labour rather than a friend. In “What can we learn from Wal-Mart…” (next page), writer Steve Brearton explores why employees gave the nod to the store Sam Walton built, as well as to a couple of other firms that occupy less-than glamorous positions in the corporate pecking order—including our co-winner, Cintas. On the following pages, we chart the Top 50 and put a human face on all the numbers, with some key lessons delivered by employees themselves.

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Unlimited overtime pay was just one of the many perks John Halbauer enjoyed as a welder during Alberta’s super-sized energy boom.

That’s disappeared, along with 11 of the 25-year-old’s 13 co-workers who got laid-off in January. “I was worried. I didn’t know if I was going to have to move back home or what,” the Kimberley, B.C., native said.

His employer, Harley’s Welding Inc., is located in Nisku, an industrial park south of Edmonton that caters to the province’s notoriously unpredictable oil and gas industry. Most companies were hit hard when the global economic crisis and plummeting energy prices side-swiped Alberta late last year.

But in recent weeks, Mr. Halbauer and many others in the province have noticed that the economy is slowly improving, especially in the northern half of Alberta.

“We are almost really busy. Work is rolling in,” Mr. Halbauer said.

Indeed, a run-up in oil prices and recent news that two oil sands projects, including Imperial Oil Ltd.’s $8-billion Kearl mine outside Fort McMurray, are going ahead has buoyed many.

But the optimism is guarded, and no one is predicting another unprecedented boom for Alberta, once the country’s hottest economy.

Earlier this year, Statistics Canada estimated that oil-sands spending will drop to $13.2-billion in 2009, down more than 30 per cent from last year. Billions worth of capital projects have either been scrapped or put on hold.

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There were few smiles to be offered, but organizers said they sensed hopefulness in the hundreds of people who lined up to enter the fair at 10 a.m. Tuesday.

“Just coming here shows they have hope,” said Job Fair founder Daniel Levesque.

The busiest exhibitors at the two-day fair are those with jobs to offer, like Everest College.

The business, technology and health college has dozens of positions opening up across the province, said human resources manager Farrell Hall.

Training courses at its 17 campuses have been swamped since the economic downturn, prompting an immediate need to expand. Potential candidates are being interviewed on site today, and could receive job offers within weeks, he said.

A number of provinces also have large presences at the Toronto Convention Centre, hoping to lure workers to a new frontier or convince expats to return home.

Prince Edward Island has a list of 46 jobs to be filled, Saskatchewan has its own ‘street’, and New Brunswick pulled out all the stops with its mock Maritime kitchen offering King Cole tea, ginger snaps, music and picturesque images of life away from Toronto’s streets.

And the strategy could work. Yogesh Patel, an out of work mechanical engineer who came to Canada from India three years ago, said he’s willing to move anywhere to land work in his field.

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“Generally we’re following the recession script,” said Sal Guatieri, senior economist at BMO Capital Markets. “Companies at first cut back hours worked and defer hiring before they actually slash their payrolls.”

As of January, 41% of Canadian companies had imposed or were contemplating salary freezes and 74% were in the same stage of enacting hiring freezes, a survey of 246 Canadian firms by professional services firm Towers Perrin showed. The survey found 79% of businesses planned to cut spending on travel and entertainment, while 70% would reduce spending on employee events and 49% would make cuts to staff training costs. In comparison, only 7% of firms had made significant reductions to employment, although 18% were considering staff layoffs.

Despite the difficult circumstances, 61% of companies were considering retention awards, salary increases and higher bonus payouts as a means to retain high-performing staff and people in pivotal roles.

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Statistics Canada says Manitoba and Saskatchewan are the two provinces with the highest proportion of youth (19% in their populations. Alberta, which has enjoyed a large migration of young people looking for work in the last few decades, has the lowest median age (35.7 years old) out of any province and the lowest proportion of seniors aged 65 and older (10.4%) out of any province in the country.

The median age across the country is 39.4 years old as of July, 2008. But, it is the North which can still lay claim to having the youngest population in Canada. The agency says this is because of traditionally higher Aboriginal fertility rates and lower life expectancy across the territories. Nunavut has the youngest population in the country, and only 2.8% of the territory’s population are seniors. It also has the youngest median age in Canada with the average age for residents being 23.8 years old.

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Gathered in the boardroom, Protegra’s 63 employees enthusiastically joined in a discussion of developing new business, offering a range of suggestions for improving project efficiency and company performance. They smiled and cheered when they were told Protegra expects to grow its profits by 20 per cent this year and expand its business with an acquisition of another company.

Such animation might be expected from a group of employees who consider themselves partners in the privately held company, many of whom actually own shares, and who know their ideas and efforts will be key to the company’s future, says Wadood Ibrahim, whose title may be chief executive officer but who is “just Wadood” to the company’s staff.

The fact that there are no titles nor any corporate ladder to climb is one of the key factors Mr. Ibrahim believes is behind Protegra’s top ranking in this year’s list of the best small and medium employers in Canada, expanded to 50 this year from 25 last year.

Wadood Ibrahim, CEO of top-ranked Protegra Inc. of Winnipeg, believes that if employees are encouraged to innovate, ‘they will find creative solutions’ in difficult times.

It’s the fifth annual survey by Queen’s Centre for Business Venturing at the Queen’s School of Business and Hewitt Associates, a global human resources services company, in partnership with The Globe and Mail.

The rankings are determined on the basis of surveys of employee engagement and effective human resources practices.

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The reforms promised by president-elect Barack Obama would offer insurance to 45 million U. S. residents who have no coverage. The resulting surge in demand for doctors’ services is likely to trigger a drain on Canada’s already meagre supply of physicians, some analysts say. Primary-care specialists, including family doctors, internists and pediatricians, will be in most demand if the changes come about, as looks increasingly likely.

Until U. S. medical schools start turning out larger numbers of doctors, the United States will likely look outside its borders to help fill the gap. The United States may use new incentives to lure physicians into those generalist roles.

“If, relative to the U. S., your primary care is undervalued, that is going to be a real issue for Canada,” said Dr. Fred Ralston of the American College of Physicians, which represents internal-medicine specialists. “If you don’t make parallel moves, that could really cause problems.”

Even now, physicians earn more on average in the United States than in Canada.

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