HRM is desperate for skilled workers to build housing — why don’t we have enough?

It’s a problem we see or hear about every day. Tents in the park, people living in cars, being evicted or worried they won’t make rent. This week we’re looking at the scope of the problem, how we got here, who can fix it and how. 

HALIFAX, N.S. — Labour shortages.

We’ve all heard it as one of the major obstacles holding back housing projects in HRM. 

Mayor Mike Savage says there are 11,000 units approved and ready to go right now in HRM, with another 250,000 units that can be developed as-of-right.

But a short supply of skilled labour is one of the roadblocks — along with the current costs of borrowing, cost of materials and others  — standing in the way of getting those units built faster. And it doesn’t help that other provinces are trying to poach the workers we do have.

According to a  Prism Economics report from 2021,  the construction sector will need 13,750 new registrants to keep pace with demand requirements over the long-term (2030), assuming completion rates remain at historic levels.

The Nova Scotia government is pumping out incentives and with this kind of demand, the trades promise job security and in some cases, six-figure salaries.

Some young people are biting, but it’s not enough for others. SaltWire visited Cole Harbour District High School — which has an elaborate facility to teach carpentry, electrical work and plumbing — to find out why.

No thanks

“I guess I just haven’t had the experience in the trades and I don’t have a lot of knowledge of what exactly the trades are,” said Tomi Adeoye, 17.

Instead, she has her sights set on medicine.

Adeoye, who is on the student council, said lots of students feel it’s a lot of work and they’re just more comfortable doing something with a computer. 

“Some people I think would just hear ‘skilled trades’ and think it’s too hard to do it,” she said.

“It’s a male-dominated industry so I’ve heard some females (say they don’t) want to be in that environment, saying it might be hard to get in a position there.”

Becka Boutilier has taken some trades courses in high school but she’s not interested. She said she wants to take architecture instead.

“I realized I enjoyed it but I just don’t know. I just like architecture and environment stuff as well,” she said.

Yes, please

Dekai Beals said the trades “have been thrown at me for a couple years now” and he likes it, especially carpentry and welding.

“And it’s where the money is. That’s what I’ve been hearing a lot,” he said. “My first weld I did was actually pretty good so I thought that I could do it if I really put the time and effort into learning.”

Given the high demand for electricians, 17-year-old Dylan Clelland said it feels it’s given him a purpose.

“We’re just coming into a new generation where it’s just all electricity and technologies and I feel like I just benefit a lot more in the electrical program,” he said.

“Overall I’m still just doing this for me and I feel like this is the best opportunity I have.”

He’s following an interest, but it’s also about the money, said Grade 12 student Ayden Marryatt who wants to pursue the electrical construction trades.

“Everyone needs money nowadays especially with inflation and all this crap going on.”

A lot of myths to bust

In the 20 years as a Red Seal carpenter and 10 years teaching trades in high school, Marco Barreiro has seen it all.

He said about 60 per cent of the high school students in his trades class end up pursuing a related career. 

There’s a lot of misunderstandings out there that divert young people away from the construction trades, he said.

“We’re trying to get rid of those stigmas, like you don’t have to be physically strong to work in the trades. We have cranes that do the lifting,” he said. “I’ve experienced that ‘the trades aren’t for females’ but the trades are for everybody.

“… There’s just nothing I can think of that would differentiate a male from a female as far as the trades or the challenges — the challenges are there for everybody.”

He’s also heard that the trades aren’t for people who are afraid of heights.

“Well, sorry, there’s plenty of work to be done in shops or down on the ground.”

And there’s a reason that he still works construction on the side while teaching — the money is great.

“There are six-figure positions out there,” he said. “There are six figures being earned by not just one trade or two, but by many trades.”

Then there are other rewards. For Barreiro, who has worked on highrises and bridges, there is pride there every time he passes by a former work site.

“I have two boys and … we’d be driving by Kings Wharf and they say ‘Yeah, I know, Dad, you built that,’” he said.

Not as much in rural areas

While there has been steady enrolment in the past few years in the trades at NSCC, it’s mostly at HRM’s metro campuses, said Andrew Lafford, NSCC’s acting dean of trades and transportation.

“Whereas in the rural campuses, sometimes they fill, some years they won’t,” he said. 

There are some unexplained anomalies like the sheet metal program — a good job with good pay — that just isn’t filling right now, Lafford said.

Most students come directly from high school, but more and more people are changing careers because it’s good money, he said. There has been a slow increase of women taking the courses “but it’s still not where it needs to be,” Lafford said.

People with disabilities, newcomers, Indigenous people and African Nova Scotians are also all under-represented, he said.

To get into the trades, students can go through NSCC, apply for direct apprenticeship or go through union-affiliated training options.

While there are a couple of women in his class, Isaac Hubley, a first-year carpentry student at the NSCC Akerley Campus in Dartmouth, said he finds people are hesitant to get involved because they think it’s too physically demanding or not a good choice for women.

“It’s doable for anybody,” he said.

And it’s not so bad to be in such high demand either.

Hubley said already his class has done a job shadow — working with a company for a week — and about half the class, including him, were offered jobs on the spot.

“There definitely is a lot of demand and that is a big draw for students. I’d say almost half the class has been saying that’s the biggest draw for them: the money and the demand,” he said, adding the additional grants and incentives also bring people in.

Provincial incentives

Grants, training for newcomers, tax rebates and fast-forward incentives are being floated by the provincial government to increase the number of skilled trades.

In October, Nova Scotia announced several initiatives that will cost about $100 million over three years.

The plan is to add up to 5,000 more new apprentices to the system in the next three years, increase the number of journeypersons and trades qualifiers by 1,000 a year and increase the retention rate of apprentices from 43 per cent to 60 per cent — one of the highest in the country — within five years.

The Nova Scotia Apprenticeship agency reported that in 2022-2023, the number of registered apprentices increased by nearly six per cent, with a record number of new apprentices registered — 1,898, which is an increase of over 40 per cent.

But some provincial incentives have been less than successful. The More Opportunity for Skilled Trades (MOST) program introduced in 2022, offers a provincial tax rebate for trades workers under the age of 30 on the first $50,000 of income. As of October, only $4.5 million of the budgeted $21 million had been paid out.

A spokesperson for the Department of Labour, Skills and Immigration said she doesn’t have any statistics on the number of people coming to work in the skilled trades from other parts of Canada or on the number of international arrivals coming to participate in the apprenticeship program.