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Construction as a 'Pathway to Employment'
Editorial by Christian Saint Cyr
National Director / Canadian Job Development Network
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Skilled trades and professions in the construction sector have always been seen as a strong career path, but with economic uncertainty many are suggesting the sector's future may not be as rosy as once thought.
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Fortunately, according to new analysis from BuildForce Canada, we’re getting a closer look at how the construction industry is balancing itself. According to BuildForce, “last year the construction labour market was not cooling – it was normalizing.”
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Reviewing the latest employment numbers they report a slightly larger labour pool, combined with strong ongoing investment in infrastructure and non-residential projects. They believe this has offered the industry a chance to regroup.
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For employers, it means better recruitment potential, but competition for skilled trades still remains intense. It also means that training and upskilling programs remain vital to meeting evolving project demands. They believe regional workforce planning is critical, as growth and slack are highly localized.
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BuildForce recommends policymakers and industry organizations keep investing in workforce development, even as migration patterns shift and domestic training efforts accelerate.
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When analyzing Statistics Canada's recently released 2024 construction sector employment data, we see an average construction unemployment rate of 5.6% which is still remarkably low compared to historical norms.
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The construction labour force, the total number of people either working or actively seeking work, also grew last year, rising from 1.69 million to 1.702 million. This 0.7% increase suggests that recruitment efforts are succeeding in attracting new talent, a critical development for an industry facing long-term demographic pressures from an aging workforce.
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When we break it down on a national basis, we see that in Ontario, construction employment declined by 4.4 per cent, primarily due to continued pullbacks in new-home construction and renovation activities. Manitoba was the only other province to record a decline, sinking 1.7 per cent.
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Meanwhile construction employment increased by 15.6% in Prince Edward Island; 10.1 per cent inn New Brunswick and 9.3 per cent in Nova Scotia. British Columbia, Quebec, Alberta, and Newfoundland and Labrador posted gains of between one and four per cent.
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It was only in Saskatchewan where employment was flat.
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While breaking down the number for individual provinces is helpful, we need to remember that in a country as vast as Canada, there is a huge urban-rural divide. The following is a breakdown of the numbers in many of Canada’s major centres.
- In British Columbia, construction employment grew rapidly in many regions, driven by major infrastructure and institutional projects. The Kamloops economic region led the country with growth of 27.5%, buoyed by work major healthcare facilities. Abbotsford-Mission also posted gains of over 20%, with Chilliwack (+14.5%) and Vancouver (+6.3%) also seeing increases. However, not all areas shared in the boom: Nanaimo saw employment contract by 16.7%, and Kelowna experienced a decline of 39.6%, reflecting the unevenness of project activity across the province.
- In Alberta, construction employment expanded across every major economic region. Lethbridge saw employment surge by 12.3%, supported by residential growth and infrastructure projects. Red Deer followed at 8.2%. Calgary posted the province’s largest real employment gain, adding 5,700 workers (+6.9%), while Edmonton added 2,900 workers, supported by non-residential activity and a recovering new-housing sector.
- Saskatchewan saw mixed results. Gains in the Saskatoon region were offset by declines in Regina, leaving overall provincial employment largely unchanged.
- In Manitoba, the Winnipeg region, which dominates the province’s construction market, saw a slight employment decline of 0.9%. This accounted for about 30% of Manitoba’s overall construction employment loss in 2024.
- Ontario presented the most complex regional story. Some regions posted extraordinary employment growth: Kitchener-Cambridge-Waterloo (+19.0%), Windsor (+18.3%), and Brantford (+16.4%) led the way, buoyed by public infrastructure and manufacturing investments. However, these gains were overshadowed by widespread declines elsewhere. Toronto alone shed 18,300 construction jobs in 2024, a drop of 8.1%, largely tied to weaker new-home construction. Barrie (-29.3%), Peterborough (-21.5%), and Hamilton (-16.5%) also saw steep employment contractions.
- In Quebec, declines in major centres like Drummondville (-17.0%), Québec City (-6.2%), and Montréal (-2.5%) were partially offset by strong gains in Trois-Rivières (+19.6%), Saguenay (+8.5%), and Sherbrooke (+4.7%). Still, in real numbers, the declines in the urban regions outweighed the gains in other economic regions tracked by Statistics Canada. However, the fact that province-wide employment increased suggests that growth outside of economic regions tracked by Statistics Canada was strong.
- The Atlantic provinces fared well in 2024.
- New Brunswick enjoyed strong, broad-based growth, with Saint John and Moncton each posting employment increases of more than 15%.
- Nova Scotia’s Halifax region grew by 10.5%, accounting for nearly two-thirds of the province’s total construction employment gains.
- In Newfoundland and Labrador, growth was concentrated in St. John’s (+13.7%), while elsewhere employment was more stable.
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BuildForce Canada acknowledges that data for Prince Edward Island remains unavailable due to population size.
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Whenever I examine data, I always try to think about how this applies to real people. How would this impact people who've been laid off in industries that have been hard hit by the US tariffs? Are there opportunities here for people who've recently arrived in the country and where their traditional skill set isn't being acknowledged. What about young workers who are entering the job market for the first time.
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When the pandemic began, I remember our provincial health officer commenting about six months in, “this isn't the end, but it’s the end of the beginning." That was really depressing and yet I feel like it nicely exemplifies the times we're living in.
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Over the past nine months we've learned we can't rely on the United States to act in a predictable manner; that Canadian provinces and territories need to do a lot to better trade with each other; and it's hard for employers to make decisions when they don't know what to expect.
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This sort of uncertainty could result in a recession, or the boom and bust nature could further stimulate the economy and hiring for a couple of more years. What is going to happen is in December is as much as mystery today as what is going to happen in the year 2030.
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When things are uncertain, I tell people to double-down on skills development. Training, education and career development, in the form of mentorship, professional association and credentialling, are the best guard against uncertainty. They will help protect jobs when there is technological innovation, when industries contract and when the economy tanks. Why is this? It's because when tough decisions need to be made, it's the lowest skill, lowest paid, most precarious jobs that get cut.
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During the pandemic, skilled professionals got to work from home. Cashiers, servers, janitors, customer service representatives, receptionists and any other front-facing customer role got layoff notices.
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You might think, oh -- that's an extreme example.
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Well, back in the year 2006, BuildForce Canada projected the construction sector was due for a major downturn in 2008/2009, which coincided eventually with the worldwide economic collapse.
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On a construction site, who were the first people to get laid off? Unskilled labourers were let go first, followed by those with occupational training and the last to be let go were the skilled, ticketed tradespeople. When the construction industry started up again in 2009, the first people back were the skilled tradespeople, followed by those with occupational training and finally the unskilled workers.
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In the career development sector, we often can't encourage or at least pay for people to do two, three or four years of education and training in an occupation, even though those are the most sustainable jobs. In fact, I think it would be hard to find a job seeker who would or could wait four years to complete their training.
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Through apprenticeship, the construction industry provides opportunities like no other. We can do some basic skills training or even a pre-apprenticeship training program to get someone into the sector and once in, they can pursue a four-year ticket that will radically improve their long-term income, job security and workplace satisfaction.
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The data from BuildForce would certainly suggest the sector continues to be strong. With an older than average workforce, the construction sector will continue to churn new jobs and economic opportunities.
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There is no doubt this sector is primed for technological transformation, but I can assure you it will be the ticketed trades people and skilled professionals who are most in demand when the dust clears.
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This just doesn't apply to careers in construction. This is a great opportunity for us to look at skills enhancement across the board. Perhaps for someone who's never worked before, that great next step is going to be an entry-level minimum wage job, but for someone who's been trapped in these jobs for years, if not decades, what can we do to change the narrative? Is there a skills path that will take them into better paying jobs, with more security and the opportunity to do upskilling well after their work with us is done?
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We’ll be discussing the construction sector and skills enhancement generally at our #MotivatingMondays meeting of the Canadian Job Development Network, Monday September 15th at 8:30am Pacific; 9:30am Mountain; 10:30am Central; 11:30am Eastern; 12:30pm Atlantic and at 1pm in Newfoundland.
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On the morning of Monday September 15th 'Click this Link' to join the session LIVE.
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'2025 Labour Market
Year-in-Review Workshops'
December 2025
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It’s been two weeks and we’ve already had amazing registration for our annual Labour Market Year-in-Review Workshops, taking place respectively in British Columbia and Ontario. There is so much information out there about emerging trends in industries, occupations and skills development pathways. I love this annual opportunity to share the very latest with career professionals. Plus, September is always Early-Bird Discount Month and participants have up until September 25th, to benefit from the 35% discount on registration. To learn more:
BC Workshop Link | Nov. 28th / Dec. 1st
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Ontario Workshop Link | Dec. 5th and 8th
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'National Networking Day for Job Developers'
NETWORKING IN LOCAL COMMUNITIES
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Just a reminder, the National Networking Day for Job Developers, is taking place this Friday, September 19th. We still have space in some communities if not online. To learn more or reserve your space just visit: www.jobdevelopment.org/nnd
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