Contractors’ group predicts demand to rise
Derrick Penner
Sun
B.C. will need 18,135 new construction workers by 2009, according to the latest Canadian Construction Association forecast. Photograph by : Vancouver Sun Illustration
British Columbia construction contractors already gritting their teeth over shortages of tradespeople have received more news to raise their stress levels: They’ll likely need a lot more skilled workers up to 2011.
B.C. will need 18,135 new construction workers by 2009, according to the latest Canadian Construction Association forecast, just as the industry lists finding skilled workers as its biggest challenge.
And it doesn’t account for any of the 22,644 workers — 19 per cent of the total workforce — the association estimates will retire between now and 2014.
The association included projections of labour demand in its forecast showing B.C.’s construction workforce growing steadily to 190,485 in 2009 at the height of Olympic-related venue and infrastructure construction.
The association used data compiled by the Construction Sector Council, a national industry body devoted to developing the construction workforce.
Beyond 2009, mining and energy-related projects will dominate the sector, said Jeff Morrison, the Canadian Construction Association’s director of government affairs. Along with continued spending on public infrastructure, the developments are expected to employ 188,104 people in 2010 and 185,918 in 2011.
“Some of those sectors will drive [construction] post Olympics,” Morrison said, “So therefore the demand for construction services will remain fairly steady.”
Manley McLachlan, president of the B.C. Construction Association, said evidence of the stretched labour force can be seen in the scarcity of bidders for big projects.
McLachlan added that, through monitoring the B.C. association’s bid repository, he sees as few as two bidders vying to build projects that would have drawn eight or nine bidders just a few years ago.
“That tells me contractors are being prudent and recognize they can’t overextend themselves,” McLachlan added. “[But] that’s one small step away from projects [being] rolled back and put on hold.”
Investors, he said, are starting to examine the availability of human capital to build a project just as closely as they monitor their financial capital needs when planning projects.
And non-residential contractors can’t count on an infusion of workers from the residential sector with the anticipated decline in housing starts over the next couple of years.
Peter Simpson, CEO of the Greater Vancouver Home Builders’ Association, said home renovations are expected to increase significantly as housing starts drop, which will soak up many workers not needed to build new homes.
“We’ll still need the workers in home building and renovations combined,” Simpson added.
The retirement picture is also worrying to Simpson. He said although workers near retirement want to wind down careers, they are still needed to train and mentor the trainees coming into the workforce.
“There’s only so many we can convince to stay on,” he added.
Simpson said the apprenticeship tax credits that the provincial government announced Wednesday will help employers attract new workers, but other steps are needed.
McLachlan said builders have to cooperate on scheduling their work to ensure they don’t stretch the workforce too thin. The Construction Owners Association in Alberta already achieves that goal and should be emulated in B.C., he said.
McLachlan added that the industry needs to do a better job of recruiting. The training system needs to make sure no training seats remain empty in one part of the province while there are waiting lists for them in other locations and recruiters need to do a better job of engaging aboriginal communities to find workers.
Ultimately, McLachlan said immigration rules need to be revised to make it easier for foreign-trained tradespeople to get into Canada.
“Every element of what contributes to the human-resource side of the construction industry has to be working at capacity,” McLachlan added.
© The Vancouver Sun 2006
