Due to the shortage of construction workers, Canada needs to strengthen the number of home builders
Canada is growing fast – and so are its housing needs.
This pressure, in turn, is testing the construction industry, which is facing a growing labor shortage.
There are tens of thousands of unfilled construction jobs across the country — including up to 20,000 vacancies in Ontario alone — that the Laborers’ International Union of North America (LiUNA) says it could fill if only they could find the workers.
The job opportunities in industries such as residential and high-rise construction include blue-collar workers, masons, cement finishers, and trim and tiling workers.
“That’s just one union,” said Victoria Mancinelli, LiUNA’s director of public relations in Central and Eastern Canada, describing the shortage as a partial snapshot of the broader construction labor crisis.
The industry is also facing an impending wave of retirements that will see about 20 percent of Canadian construction workers retire within 10 years.
“This is not something unique to construction,” said Bill Ferreira, executive director of industry group BuildForce Canada, referring to the labor supply challenges faced by Canada’s aging workforce.
To move construction projects forward, Canada needs people to build them. Therefore, both the industry and the various levels of government are paying close attention to how many employees will be available to work on job boards now and in the future.
“It’s critical to get more people into the business,” Monte McNaughton, Ontario’s labor minister, said in an interview.
Challenges differ from east to west
There are parts of Canada where construction labor shortages are expected to be more acute than others, and Ferreira said demographics are at the heart of those regional disparities.
“It’s almost an east and west story,” he said, noting that prairie populations are skewing younger, which is favorable for recruiting construction workers.
For example, BuildForce Canada expects the number of pending retirements in Alberta almost in equilibrium with new recruits from the county through 2032. But even more people will need to be hired to meet construction demand during that time — and officials have indicated the county now needs more construction workers.
Ferreira said the exception in the west is in British Columbia expect to see 38,000 of its veteran builders retire by 2032. But local hiring is expected to fall short by thousands in terms of total new hires.
In Ontario, more than 80,000 people will leave the industry during the same period. That is a problem in a province that is aiming for 1.5 million new homes by 2031. The actual number of workers required will be significantly higher than the number retiring.
McNaughton acknowledges the challenges, but he points to the intense efforts the county government has made to address the supply of construction workers.
“It’s a big task for us,” he said, noting that Ontario is currently short of 72,000 construction workers.
The minister said the provincial government has been pushing to increase the recruitment of skilled trade workers and to encourage many more young people to enter the field.
Ontario saw 27,319 people sign up for apprenticeships in the past 12 months – a record number that McNaughton says equates to a 24 per cent year-on-year increase.
Farther east, New Brunswick expects nearly a third of its construction workers to retire in the next five years. That has consequences for a small province experiencing population growth.
“The [construction] the industry is struggling to match the start of housing construction with levels routinely reached in the 2000s, when our population stagnated, sometimes even declined,” economist Richard Saillant wrote in a discussion paper earlier this year.
Several major construction projects on Cape Breton are fueling the demand for trade workers. Many say it is the busiest island since the late 1990s. That reports Matthew Moore of the CBC.
Salient said labor was “a major constraint on New Brunswick’s ability to expand its housing supply.”
Last year, the Construction Association of Prince Edward Island said it believed at least 1,000 more workers were needed. By this spring, the province could need twice as many people to catch up on projects.
Fewer people, more costs
Any shortage of needed labor can affect what gets built and how much it costs to build things.
Construction magnate Mandy Rennehan has seen the reality unfold in rural parts of the Maritimes, where she says skilled labor is scarce and the prices people pay for related services have risen sharply.
“The trade industry is no different than any other,” said Rennehan, a trade veteran, media personality and founder of construction company Freschco, noting that shifts in supply and demand affect construction.
She also said rising labor costs are a concern not only for individual homeowners and developers, but also for contractors and small construction companies involved in building needed homes.
Larger players in the field may not sweat these kinds of cost increases the way smaller operations do, Rennehan said. “They are the ones who are squeezed.”
There will also be projects that don’t go ahead if there aren’t enough people available to do the work.
How to recruit more employees
Ferreira of BuildForce Canada said there are a number of ways the construction industry can search for the next generation of talent.
Some will come from the kids growing up today who may be more encouraged to consider a career in the craft.
But, he said, the industry also needs to look at expanding the hiring of people who are largely underrepresented on job boards. Women and indigenous peoples are two such examples, Ferreira said.
Rennehan said she agrees there’s a lot of room to grow in terms of bringing more diversity to the world of the craft — though she’s seen progress on that front, even if the work isn’t done yet.
Industry voices and government officials also see great potential to find many of the future builders among Canada’s newcomer population.
That includes welcoming more skilled workers directly from abroad — something the federal Immigration Secretary has said previously signaled will be a focus for the federal government.
McNaughton, Ontario’s minister of labor, said such recruitment represents a “huge opportunity to use immigration strategically” to bolster the provincial selection of skilled workers, which is what his own province plans to do.
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