By Ted McIntyre
Seven solutions to the trades shortage (including some that can start from within)
We’ve all heard the numbers, but here’s a quick refresher: According to the Ontario government, at least one in three workers in Ontario with an apprenticeship certificate as their highest credential is nearing retirement, and almost 500,000 additional workers are expected to be needed in skilled trades-related occupations over the next decade.
While the residential construction industry, mired in a market as flat as a carpenter’s level, isn’t feeling the squeeze at the moment, we don’t have to delve too far into our memory banks to recall the mad scramble for labour when the housing market was surging. And that wave of new starts will certainly hit us again within two years as demand picks up and the industry mobilizes to meet the mandated 1.5 million new homes by 2031.
The good news is that several government programs are encouraging youth to consider livelihoods in everything from drywall to plumbing. Through Ontario’s Skilled Trades Strategy, more than $1.5 billion has been invested since 2020. That includes supporting 68 new pre-apprenticeship programs that will serve over 1,700 participants in 2024-2025. These free programs (more on this later) combine classroom training with on-the-job learning. The Ontario Youth Apprenticeship Program (OYAP) now has more than 72 recruiters across 800 schools, helping students learn about skilled trades at a younger age. And starting with those entering Grade 9 in September 2024, all students will be required to earn a Grade 9 or 10 Technological Education credit as part of their Ontario Secondary School Diploma to help foster interest in a career in the skilled workforce.
But even with all those efforts, it will take years to fill the gap. So what can we do to complement those programs and help soften the impact of that impending tsunami? Here’s a seven-point solution, some of which you can be part of.
1. Focus Immigration Selection
The Canadian economy requires a steady stream of immigrants to support its economy, especially with more than 500,000 baby boomers hitting retirement age (65) annually. To stress the point even further, “natural population growth is falling to the point where by 2030, overall population growth is expected to be fueled entirely by immigration,” reported RBC’s Benjamin Richardson and Cynthia Leach in a March report entitled A Growing Problem: How to Align Canada’s Immigration with the Future Economy.
Immigration has been primarily responsible for a recent increase in available workers, but it hasn’t been enough “to significantly offset the impact of an aging demographic or substantially reduce the structural shortages in the jobs market,” the report notes. “A big reason for this is that the skillsets that many immigrants bring to Canada and the study fields of international students do not match well with the anticipated longer-term structural
needs of the economy. Right now, the immigration system may be focusing too much on the labour market’s short-term demands, filling holes in sectors where low-skilled occupations have been experiencing acute shortages since the pandemic (such as accommodation and food services). This has led to a surge in non-permanent residents and a strain on housing and social services and eroded public support for immigration.”
Shortages in multiple fields—primarily skilled trades and healthcare—remain significant. And it’s not a gap that’s going to be filled by international students, as “almost half (46%) of projected structural labour shortages are in occupations that don’t require a university or college education.”
Unfortunately, “private colleges, some in partnership with public colleges, have increasingly targeted international students as a lucrative source of revenue. This has led to negative outcomes for students and their surrounding communities,” the report indicates.
“Policy measures have been introduced to accelerate home building, including a federal GST rebate on new purpose-built rental construction, but the massive scale of in-migration makes it extremely difficult for housing supply to keep up,” Richardson and Leach write.
The Canadian government introduced Express Entry into the immigration selection process last summer. The initiative involves a category-based selection process for priority jobs in high-demand sectors, including the building trades. Anna Bomal, an economist with the Canadian Federation of Independent Business, wants to see more along that line. “To adequately tackle labour shortages through immigration, it is essential to consider the training of immigrants and accord points (through the scoring system) to immigrants who have skills that are in demand by Canadian employers,” Bomal told OHB magazine last month.
The RBC report’s recommendations follow suit. They include updating the Comprehensive Ranking System to prioritize economic immigrants with higher predicted earnings, drive foreign recruitment campaigns, incentivize post-secondary institutions to build more student housing, and consider mutual credential recognition agreements with prominent source countries to avoid those arriving workers having to go through years of additional education and training to be certified after arriving in Canada.
2. Increase the Ratios
Another step that needs to be initiated by the Ontario government is to bump the existing apprentice-to-journeyman ratio from 1:1 to at least 2:1. “Right now, it’s stupid, because every tradesperson I know that has already gone through the process could easily handle 2:1,” says Manny Neves, host and founder of The Construction Life, Canada’s most-listened-to construction podcast. “But the government’s not allowing that. Are they thinking that the second person will get lost in the shuffle? That’s complete horseshit. It has to go to 2:1 immediately. And if some employers prove themselves, they should be able to go to three-to-one.”
Dan Guest, president of OHBA member Guest Plumbing & HVAC, concurs with the latter ratio. “Put me down for 3:1,” Guest says. “There’s 2:1 and 3:1 in Vancouver, and it has been working for years.”
3. Improve the Image
A multi-faceted marketing program is required to educate and entice youngsters about skilled trades opportunities—including their attractive potential incomes. Ontario masons, for example, earn upwards of $90,000 annually, with plumbers ranging up to $97,500, according to 2022 and 2023 numbers analyzed by Skilled Trades Ontario. A posting for a gasfitter/HVAC technician last month in St. Thomas offered a salary of $87,500. Ads showing tradespeople vacationing in the Caribbean, driving luxury pickup trucks and living in lovely homes could go a long way to changing the stereotype.
“Some people pay to learn. Others get paid to learn. You know who those people are? Apprentices!” says Niagara Home Builders’ Association CEO Chuck McShane. “For the past 20 years, we’ve all heard that you need to go to university. I have two daughters—one was meant to go to university and the other one wasn’t, and both have become very successful in the home building industry. Some are meant to use their hands and brains in a different way. But because the skilled trades have long been referred to as dirty jobs, we’ve ended up in this situation. We took shop classes out of school. We even took home economics out. At least what the Conservatives are now doing to promote the trades is, by far, more than we’ve ever seen in this province.
“But we need to speak to parents and grandparents, because it all starts at home,” McShane says.
Neves agrees. “The group most responsible for the downfall of interest in grade school shop class is parents—either those who don’t want their kids to go into construction or parents who are in construction but don’t want their kids to go through the stuff they went through. Yet those parents made enough money in construction to buy a house and a cottage and pay for all their daughters’ and sons’ education and weddings! The parents are the gatekeepers stopping more people from getting into the industry. Plenty of young people tell me, ‘My parents told me not to get into construction—to go to university and get a degree in accounting, law, medicine, whatever. It’s sad but true.”
That said, employers are also having to contend with a generational mindset. When asked which area features the biggest trades shortage, McShane is blunt: “The biggest shortage is of anyone who wants to friggin work!”
4 Smarter Schoolwork
McShane, who once traversed the province to encourage the dissolution of the College of Trades, is now occupied by schools of a different sort, including an NHBA/Niagara College partnership that graduated 63 tradespeople this past winter. “They get all the safety training and basics in carpentry and framing, and we provide them with jobs. It’s been working very well.”
Fully funded by a provincial Skills Development Fund (SDF) grant, covering tuition, training materials, tools, personal protective equipment, employer wage subsidies and an eight-week paid work placement, the customized Construction Skills program trained over 160 students in roofing, drywall and framing between June 2022 and March 2024. It also supports individuals who cannot pursue a career in the trades due to financial or other barriers.
Another program, launched in May, saw the NHBA join forces with Niagara Catholic District School Board, Notre Dame College School and Niagara College to expand local capacity for skilled trades education.
Many graduates of Niagara College’s Construction Skills Certificate of Completion program have already secured long-term employment or are starting their own businesses. Others are returning to the college for the Carpentry and Renovation Technician Co-op program or are pursuing the college’s pre-apprenticeship programs.
LiUNA (the Laborers’ International Union of North America) is doing its part to attract women into the industry, partnering with Mohawk College’s Jill of all Trades. Its object is “to advance education and pathways to careers in the trades through industry-leading training, mentorship and apprenticeship programs while collectively working to ensure the industry is a dignified, safe space for every worker.”
Employers, however, need to provide feedback to schools turning out new tradespeople, as some are unprepared for the realities of the job. One story during research for this feature revealed a recent college graduate in framing who quit his placement because he was uncomfortable at heights. The idea that this prerequisite to the job was not conveyed to the student beforehand seems eye-opening.
“Many people operating these programs are not speaking the truth about construction life,” says Neves. “In my 15 years of construction, there were plenty of tough times—times when your body feels broken and you have to push through, times when you’re stuck on a high-rise and need to use a sheet of plywood to protect you from -40°C winds, or when it’s +40°C and you’ve gotta do a roof. We have to explain the harsh realities of life on a construction site better. I know of a female-in-construction organization boasting a 100% in-classroom pass rate. Once they got on the job site, every one of them quit. They weren’t prepared for the physical and mental realities of construction. Why didn’t someone just tell them the truth? And that goes for everyone entering the construction trades.”
Some educational methods also need updating, suggests Neves. “There are schools teaching kids hand-nail framing—in 2024! I get it that there might be potential safety concerns with pneumatics in a classroom setting, but what will happen when that kid gets on a real job site? You think they’re going to be asked to go hammer and nail this thing in? They need to be taught with today’s technology.”
5. Make Time to Train
“I spoke to one of my builders who has a couple of students from the SDF program. He wanted them to spend the day with a concrete former, just to get the feel,” relates McShane. The proposal wasn’t exactly embraced by the tradesmen. “The problem is that nobody has time—or wants to take the time—to train them. Every one of them just wanted to get their job done and go home. ‘I’m not here to train this kid!’ But 20 years ago, somebody trained them. Sadly, we don’t have the patience for that anymore. We can create all these great programs, but we can’t finalize the certifications and training without the help of our existing trades, without them explaining things to these students when they ask questions. Once you stop caring about them, those students and apprentices will stop caring about being there.”
How would McShane change that attitude? “We need to build it into the program, where you tell somebody, ‘When you go to school, not only will you be Red-Sealed, but you, in turn, will train someone just like you. You now have an obligation to give somebody else a chance.’”
“Everyone is dealing with the same problem,” Neves says. “Many complain, ‘I can spend time, money and effort training this individual, and then they can jump ship and go somewhere else for another 50 cents an hour.’ I really respect those looking at it as a positive—‘Here’s an opportunity for me to learn how to be a better manager and share the knowledge I’ve come across over my years of construction. Let’s embrace whatever programs the government offers and find someone in the office to figure out how to navigate those waters.’ Those are the ones who will help solve the labour shortage.”
6. Build Loyalty
In the interim, it’s critical to maintain the relationships you have. “The really successful builders are founded on loyalty,” McShane says. “What builds loyalty is treating them with respect—paying your bills on time and understanding that your trades are your business partners, and the trades understanding that the builder is their business partner.
“My wife and I used to run an overhead door and window business in Niagara before I sold it,” McShane relates. “I know what it’s like to be on a job site. I’d have a builder call me and say, ‘We forgot to order the garage door opener, and we’re closing the house tomorrow.’ I’d go to my shop, jump on my truck and put that opener in that night, or have my guys alter their schedule to do it first thing in the morning—because I knew they were paying me in 30 days!”
For Neves, “the No. 1 problem with big developers is that every tradesperson is usually treated like a number, not a person. If they get injured, if they have vices, they’re replaced the next day, and another number comes in. Take the suit off, put the work boots on, get on the job site and start meeting and speaking with every tradesperson working on that site.”
As with any business, employee incentives are often invaluable. Competitive compensation can include health benefits, RSP matching and advancement opportunities, stressing how the skills they learn can prepare them for other, more lucrative jobs. And there’s the usual stuff—a healthy company culture that encourages employee feedback.
And beyond your staff, build relationships with trade schools and technical colleges to develop a source for future talent.
7. Take the Initiative
Some industry members are thinking outside the box to solve the problem. Neves highlights several company owners taking great strides to identify and educate future tradespeople, such as Burlington’s Aaron Boland of Expert Plumbing & Drains and Guest Plumbing’s Dan Guest. The latter has created Trade Smart College, an apprenticeship pathway that directly addresses the needs of both employers and students (see sidebar).
Innovation can also pay off. “Construction businesses that have implemented automation in their business have seen positive outcomes,” Bomal notes. “Recruiting retired workers and flexibility with work hours are other solutions. And it can be a mix of both.”
Neves is also a massive fan of tapping veteran talent. “One thing I’ve been trying to push for years with politicians is to create a government-funded mentorship program,” he says. “Take retirees or those close to retiring and compensate them to teach the new generation. So part of your apprenticeship would include a list of tradespeople you can reach out to who can be your bounce board and who’ll visit you on the job site and teach you exactly what construction is all about based on that trade.’ We have a huge population of older tradespeople who have gotten out of the game but have a world of knowledge in their heads. Every tradesperson I’ve ever spoken to wants this to happen.”
Become a member of the Ontario Home Builders’ Association.