Alberta’s EMS Overtime Death Spiral
As we continue to fight for a fair contract, we wanted to get ahead of some common misleading talking points the government loves to use.
Misleading talking point #1: "There is no money for pay raises"
Our FOIP data shows a staggering increase in overtime costs being spent by the provincial government with over $2,000,000 being spent almost every month for the last 3.5 years. July of 2025 saw over $3,240,000 spent on OT alone. This is an astronomical amount of taxpayer money being spent by the UCP to pay current paramedics double their hourly wage to continue to work on their days off.
Why are there so many unfilled shifts? Paramedic wages cannot compete with Fire Departments, police services or allied healthcare professions. The type of people that would make great paramedics either never enter the profession or they leave the profession to pursue more lucrative opportunities for their skill set.
The end result is that astronomical amounts of money get spent on OT wages to plug holes caused by the staffing crisis. It stands to reason that if all this OT money ($20,000,000 so far in 2025) were put towards general wage increases for paramedics, then perhaps we could recruit and retain paramedics to fill empty positions and not have to pay astronomical OT costs anymore. We could likely fill hundreds of empty paramedic positions by repurposing this OT money to create a proper competitive wage for paramedics.
This would be a better use of Albertan's taxpayer money and would have the added effect of reducing paramedic burnout. OT is meant to be a temporary solution for the occasional situation where staffing numbers need to be increased. OT is not meant to be the corner stone of a staffing strategy.
We are caught in a vicious cycle. Low wages lead to paramedic burnout and job dissatisfaction, which leads to paramedics leaving the profession, which leads to more OT being used to keep the EMS system afloat, which leads to more paramedic burnout and job dissatisfaction. Rinse and repeat.
