Progress continues in attracting workers to the construction industry, but more and better recruiting and retention efforts are needed.
Construction stakeholders came together at Buildex Vancouver recently for a session titled Working Together to Address the Construction Labour Shortage, with Electrical Contractors Association of BC president Matt MacInnis moderating a panel featuring Roofing Contractors Association of BC director of education and training Rob Scales, Sasco Contractors Ltd. president Craig Paquin and BC Building Trades executive director Brynn Bourke.
Paquin said funding for apprentices is his primary concern.
“We need more seats for more people to deliver the infrastructure we need for the province,” he said.
MacInnis added the industry often doesn’t have “the right number of seats at the right place and at the right time.
“Industry needs to be able to have a dynamic response (to demand). Nobody told me in my liberal arts degree that I had to go to a different part of the province to continue training, but in the trades this is common and we need to change that,” he said.
Bourke said with the Government of British Columbia investing billions in infrastructure such as hospitals, utilities, transportation and megaprojects such as the Pattullo Bridge, the province requires a “full labour force strategy.”
“We need a strategy for construction, industry and government to come together to meaningfully look at the labour force picture, (determine) what people we need, find multiple pathways to that and fund the apprenticeship system which has been egregiously underfunded for the last 20 years,” Bourke said.
“We aren’t just building buildings, we’re building projects that care for communities.”
Scales agreed while the cost of training is rising, funding has not risen.
“In the last five years, the percentage the association is contributing continues to climb, not because less seats are allocated to support training or funding reduced but just because the cost of delivery is going up, not to mention potential of tariffs,” he said.
Scales added Skilled Trades BC has been successful at the K-12 level in increasing awareness of the trades as a career option, “but the idea has propagated that you need to go through a training program rather than being trained while employed.”
“(If) the idea is that the first step is not to reach out to employers, but to look for training, we’re missing something. The connection isn’t there and it needs to be,” Scales said.
Bourke added there is a common misconception that people always enter the trades due to family history or straight out of high school.
“The majority of apprentices don’t go through the high school route. They come in in their mid-20s and the chances are they didn’t take Calculus 11 in high school,” she said.
“We need pathways for these later learners. We need a single point of entry where people can not only explore (their options) but sign into a learning management system that can assess (your skills) and gives you modules in order to prepare and enter a trade.”
Paquin added while progress has been made barriers still exist for underrepresented workers and “we need to collectively try to address them or remove them.”
He added employee retention is as important as recruitment.
“There’s a high dropout rate for apprentices where in year three or four of their program they drop out,” he said.
“We have to make sure as employers and industry as a whole that people stay in their programs and get their ticket.”
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