As is the case for the contracts, only partial data is available on jobs held by Crees during Phase I. There is therefore no available data for the period prior to 1975, or for the period from 1982 to 1985, at the end of Phase I.

According to the data compiled by the Association des employeurs de la Baie-James [James Bay employers' association] (AEBJ, 1981), Cree participation in the La Grande complex between 1978 and 1980 peaked at 552 workers on the project as a whole in 1980. A total of 2,491 hirings were carried out for the period from 1975 to 1981; note that a Native worker could be recruited several times over the entire period.
The vast majority of Native workers were Crees, who made up close to 90% of hirings. Most of the remaining Native workers were Naskapis hired to work on the Caniapiscau diversion. Crees made up 1.7% of the 127,963 workers mobilized to complete Phase I of the La Grande complex between 1975 and 1981.

SEBJ data shows that the average number of days worked per job during Phase II was 73. Applying this average—with the obvious caveats—to Phase I of the La Grande complex would give total Cree employment of 158,921 person-days from 1975 to 1981.
In one of its reports, AEBJ revealed that in 1978 and 1979, a total of 25 companies, including the Cree Construction Company (Québec) Ltd. and the Naskapi Construction Corporation, recruited Native workers at the five main jobsites in James Bay.

Over two thirds of the Native workers held jobs as loggers. The second biggest job category, at 15% of the hires, was that of manual labourer. The remaining jobs were usually more specialized, particularly in the case of heavy equipment operators (7%) and cooks (3.4%).