Governments at all levels have big plans to build housing and transportation in the Greater Toronto Area.
Now they just need the people to do it.
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Statistics Canada reported job vacancies in the construction sector hit 89,225 in June, just below a record high in April.
Richard Lyall, president of the Residential Construction Council of Ontario (RESCON), said the industry has done a remarkable job over the past few years of increasing housing under the worst possible circumstances.
“We can use more people right now at basically all levels, even at the management level, project management, superintendents,” he said. “It’s very difficult finding talent right now.”
The demographic challenge facing all industries, including construction — where about 25% of the work force is baby boomers — didn’t exactly creep up on Canada.
It’s been known for decades that labour shortages were possible as the boomer bump made its way through the labour market.
Skilled trades immigration was responsible for building a lot of “modern Canada,” he said.
“We’ve dropped the ball on that,” Lyall said. “We need them, but the problem is where are they going to live?”
While there is now a focus on training Ontarians in skilled trades, still less than 1% of high school graduates are registered apprentices, and the average age of an apprentice is 28 years old, he said.
Germany is one of the jurisdictions that could teach Canada something about encouraging trades, he said.
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“(Germany has) got a huge percentage of high school graduates there that are in registered apprentices and the average age is 19… what are they doing right and what are we doing wrong?” Lyall said.
The real estate market has shown signs of softening in the last couple of months, but the demand for housing isn’t going away.
“One of the things that we have to be really mindful of is that we keep the new trainees and apprentices working as best we can because we’re going to need them coming out of this,” Lyall said.
aartuso@postmedia.com
