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Oil and gas production is one of Canada's most important industries. Canada is the world's sixth-largest producer of petroleum, so there are almost always jobs available for skilled and experienced workers. With the recent addition of the Athabasca Oil Sands, there looks to be tremendous job growth in this sector for years to come.

The three largest oil producers in Canada are Husky Energy, Suncor Energy and Imperial Oil. Most of the exploration and extraction work takes place in the province of Alberta, followed by British Columbia and Saskatchewan. But Alberta is the core of the Canadian natural gas and oil industry, so the majority of jobs are located in Calgary and the smaller towns around oil extraction facilities and refineries.

With the advancement in oil extraction technology such as fracking and the ability to separate oil from sand, several huge areas of development have been opened in Canada in the past few years. The Athabasca Oil Sands in Alberta is one example of the massive potential for oil extraction in Canada.

This is a very high paying field, even for the workers who do the hard manual labour of getting that oil and gas out of the earth. Known as roustabouts, these people who work the actual oil rigs can earn more than C$34,000 a year. Oil rigs also need highly skilled tradespeople like welders, brazers and trained truck drivers that also can earn very good hourly rates.

The engineers who help to calculate where the oil and gas is located and how best to get it out are in the highest demand in Canada. These people are highly trained, with graduate degrees in geology, engineering and other science fields, and usually have several years of working experience as well. They earn around C$80,000 per year and up depending on experience.

It is possible to get trained for specific oil and gas industry jobs at a two-year vocational school. This makes it much easier to get a job running the oil rigs, operating the giant boom cranes and other technical work that is essential to extracting and transporting the gas. Crane operators alone can earn C$65,000 a year.

The only downside to working in the oil and gas sector is that most of the jobs are extremely labour intensive, involve long shifts and are often located far from the city. Unless you are a petroleum engineer, you can expect a lot of hard work and big pay, especially when you factor in the overtime potential.