VICTORIA – The numbers speak for themselves.
There are currently $137 billion worth of construction projects underway in British Columbia, with another $221 billion worth of projects planned for the future, according to the British Columbia Construction Association’s Spring Stat Pack.
The industry contributes 9.7 per cent of the province’s GDP, or $25 billion per year, a 30 per cent increase over the past five years.
And while the number of workers in the industry has increased, it has actually seen a net loss of skilled trades workers, down some 9 per cent to 163,900 since 2020.
Wages are also over a five-year trend, with the average yearly wage of a construction worker at $70,088. More than $17.6 billion in payroll went out across the province in wages last year.
Construction companies trend towards the smaller side in the province as 92 per cent of the 26,262 companies have less than 20 employees. The total number of companies has grown by 8 per cent since 2018.
The number of women in the trades is down 2 per cent to 4.5 per cent, representing some 7,376 workers. Decreasing female involvement in the sector doesn’t bode well for the future, as the BCCA expects there will be 6,000 vacant jobs due to labour shortages by 2032.
And employers are experiencing a pinch with the cost of labour up 11 per cent and the cost of non-residential building up 12.8 per cent in the past year.
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