Two Part Series: Builders Call for Skilled Tradespeople

By Aonghus Kealy, New Homes Editor
Toronto Sun
December 11, 2001


With significant numbers of tradespeople poised to retire soon, the home building industry is working hard and fast to address the skilled labour shortage.

Local 183 of the Universal Workers Union, which serves the GTA, could lose between 5,000 and 7,000 workers out of its 24,000 members over the next five years. Local 183 is the largest construction local in North America. The major players for this union are framing carpenters, builders' labourers, and tradespeople for concrete and draining, concrete forming.

Part 1: A Call for Skilled Tradespeople    
Part 2: Skilled Trades Offer Lucrative Career

Back to Trade Talk

PART 1: A Call for Skilled Tradespeople

With the number of housing starts expected to reach about 74,800 this year in Ontario, including 41,000 in the GTA, there's no shortage of work on residential construction sites these days. Starts next year will dip, but still finish at more than 70,000 in Ontario, the Canadian Mortgage and Housing Corporation predicts. According to a Pulse survey from spring/ summer 2001, conducted by the Canadian Home Builders' Association, trades and labour shortages remain the top concern for home builders. The main areas of concern are framers, carpenters, bricklayers and drywallers.

"Because of the size of the baby boomer generation, its impact on the workforce is very large," said David Raymont, communications co-ordinator with the Ontario Construction Secretariat (OCS). "The average age of the labourer is getting older."

According to the OCS, the average age of a bricklayer is 40.8, a carpenter is 39.5, a plumber is 38.5, and a drywaller is 38.3. In addition, the number of workers between the ages of 15 and 24 has plummeted to 14% in 1999 from 27% of the construction workforce in 1987. But Ontario's home builders are reacting now by investing in their future.

Building 2001 Career Exhibition

This weekend's Future Building 2001 career exhibition, organized by Human Resources Development Canada and the Ontario Construction Secretariat, is only the tip of the iceberg. The three-day conference at the Metro Convention Centre wraps up Friday, and was set up to allow those interested to speak with all levels of the construction industry, and try hands-on learning with brick and stone masons, electricians, sheet metal workers and carpenters.

On the high school scene, Mattamy Homes, Fernbrook Homes, Midhaven Homes and Kaitlin Group are involved in co-op programs with school boards across Ontario. The program is worth four credits in one semester towards their secondary school diploma. The students, usually about 15 per site from Grades 11 and 12, are being trained right in the middle of hammer, tong and drill as a home is being constructed. Approximately 60 to 100 tradespeople work on each home, and here the students get a little taste of everything.

Mattamy pioneered the co-op program with Waterloo Region District School Board in September 1996. Since then, 24 homes have been created or are under construction with the assistance of Mattamy's co-op programs. Mattamy's programs have helped more than 450 students from six boards of education and adult learners.

Nearly 40% of the high school students and nearly 80% of the adult learners involved in Mattamy co-ops have secured or continued jobs in the new home building industry, or pursued construction related college courses, said Al Schmidt, Mattamy Homes' manager of education and training. They're currently involved with five Ontario school boards and the Centre for Skills Development and Training, an adult learner pre-apprenticeship program in Milton. But Mattamy's co-op curriculum is keeping up with industry advances.

A Font-Line Career Choice

Mattamy hosted a breakfast conference in Milton on Wednesday for 75 students, representatives from school boards, government members and building industry leaders for a special announcement by CEO and president Peter Gilgan. All homes involved in the 2002 Co-Op Education Program Homes will be built to R-2000 energy specification. These are energy-efficient homes, tightly constructed, well insulated and put together, and have a special ventilation system that provides fresh air to every room in the home, 24 hours a day.

Schmidt of Mattamy said construction has a bad reputation as "the dark horse of the job market," but the industry is chalk-full of well-paid professionals. "This is a front-line career choice," Schmidt said. "It's very professional, it's very highly paid. You have no problem making $50,000 (per year). We've got framers out there making $100,000-plus."

There are programs offered in Durham Region thanks to the contributions of Midhaven, Fernbrook and Kaitlin.

Vicky Pigeon, the school-to-work co-ordinator for three Durham Region school boards, is thrilled with the experience the students receive in the co-op programs. "As far as school development and maturity, you can't do anything better in five months," Pigeon said. "They have to listen, if they don't do it right, they have to rip it out and do it again, and they're with professionals all day long." Pigeon said she was flooded with 72 requests for the 15 spots in Brooklin for the September 2001 semester. And next semester, Peter Saturno, principal of Midhaven, is hoping to implement a program where the students work on one house for the whole semester, bringing it from the ground up, instead of going from site to site as they are doing this semester. Saturno said it's important the building industry gets involved now. "We've got to put our money where are mouths are," Saturno said. "Inside of 10 years, there's going to be a mass shortage of workers of 25%, if not higher in the GTA." Other builders teamed up with the GTHBA to promote the industry by creating a video called Build Your Future: Careers in Construction.

For people having trouble climbing the corporate ladder, builders such as Hugh Heron, president of Heathwood Homes is a prime example of what such a career can lead to. "I started off in Canada as an estimator, became a construction manager, then got an opportunity to go into business on my own, and I've been in business on my own now for about 25 years," Heron says on the video. "You can be a carpenter, you can be a bricklayer, you can be an estimator, you can be an owner."

PART 2: Skilled Trades Offer Lucrative Career

Sam Moses likes to shock people, and he'll do it anywhere. Even if you're his doctor standing in line with Moses, the vice-president of Norman Hill Realty. As the duo stood in line for supper, Moses waved to a friend walking by who is a plumber. "He asked me, 'who's that,'" Moses said. "I said, 'heeee's a plumber. You're only a doctor.' Hey, it's a good job. There's so much work out there (residential construction), a lot of the trades are making $75,000 a year. A lot of these times, the blue collar guys are making over $100,000."

The Ontario Home Builders' Association predicts there could be a need for 25% more construction workers in the next five to seven years. Workers are getting older, there aren't a lot of young people in it (14% of the industry are 24 or younger), and there's no shortage of work. Housing starts will finish at 73,900 this year and 71,500 next year, according to the Canada Mortgage and Housing Program.

A recent study on residential construction and labour markets in Ontario, commissioned by Residential Construction Council of Central Ontario (RESCON), found that Ontario needs "an additional 10,000 to 15,000 construction workers ... to restore a more balanced labour market." If you're young, itching for work and are fond of working with your hands, the construction industry wants you!

Jevon Andrychuk, 19, is very familiar with the labour shortage. He's a second-year apprentice bricklayer. "It's raining today, so I'm not working," Andrychuk said. "It's hard work, though. No need for the gym. I get paid to work out."  As a matter of fact, it was thanks to an ad in The Toronto Sun that he ended up in the workforce. Andrychuk went to a seminar that was advertised in The Sun, and is now on his way to earning $50,000-plus per year.

Shortage Blamed on Recession

According to RESCON's study, the shortage is blamed on the recession in the early 1990s that forced many labourers to pursue other industries. Builders are begging for bricklayers, carpenters, labourers, cement finishers, plumbers, roofers, and drywallers. And -- surprise, surprise -- the booming GTA is one of Ontario's labour-needy areas, even though it has shown "stronger expansion of the work force." There's hope that younger talent will help fill the void that will be created when those aging workers between 45 and 54 get set to retire within five to seven years.

"Conditions in both the housing and labour markets are extraordinary and create growing pressures on suppliers," reveals RESCON.

The perception and reality of the workforce are that the veterans need some young blood to back them up. The average age of an Ontario bricklayer is 40.8, according to the Ontario Construction Secretariat. Other building industry experts are so wary of the aging population of the trades they have said the average age of a bricklayer in Toronto is 55. I'll go with the government on this one.

The demand is heavy enough in the GTA that the Greater Toronto Home Builders' Association formed a joint agency with the federal government called the Construction Recruitment External Workers Services (CREWS) to speed up the paperwork in bringing up to 500 foreign workers here temporarily. CREW's targeted areas are bricklaying, house framing, form working, cement finishing and construction labour.

Human Resources Development Canada and Citizenship and Immigration, and the GTHBA, have ruled that an employer who hires an offshore worker must hire two Canadians. And in the event of a work shortage, the temporary foreign workers are to be laid off before, and can't displace, any Canadian or permanent resident of Canada.

Project Build for Tomorrow

As for provincial government involvement, a program called Project Build for Tomorrow will be launched next month to help apprentices upgrade their knowledge and skill levels in the residential construction and renovation industry. Apprentice stone and brick masons and general carpenters will be initially targeted at first, learning about site safety, the Ontario New Home Warranty Program call-backs and the Ontario Building Code.

Brent Easson, project supervisor for Project Build for Tomorrow, said the program should help be taken by up to 10,000 Ontarians this year, and hopes 80% of those people will be high school students. There's no fee to take the online course. The Local 183 Training Centre in Vaughan is another constant contributor in trying to fill the labour gap. It has a seven-week program it offers to high school students under the Peel District School Board where they learn a bit of each of the trades on a real project. More than 700 students, whether youth or career-shifters, take part in 183's programs each year. "It really is the true test," said Lito Romano, the centre's outreach co-ordinator. "We always tell the students this is where you showcase the talents you learned at the training centre. The ones with drive succeed."

The students put in some prep work at the 38,000-sq.-ft. training centre, which has enough room for them to work on a simulated subdivision. Those with "the drive" go on to work in house framing, high-rise forming, low-rise forming, concrete and drain, bricklaying, roadbuilding and heavy construction.

CONTACT INFORMATION

- Local 183's training centre -- www.183training.com
- To view GTHBA and Local 183's video Build Your Future: Careers in Construction, go to www.newhomes.org to view it online 
- For more information on CREWS, contact the GTHBA at 416-391-3445 
- For more information on Project Build for Tomorrow, contact the Ontario Home Builders' Association at 416-443-1545, or check out www.homesontario.com