this post was submitted on 18 Apr 2024
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Canada’s construction worker shortage stands in way of housing boost, CMHC says (globalnews.ca)
submitted 6 months ago by booja@booja.ca to c/canada@lemmy.ca
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[–] ChocoboRocket@lemmy.world 7 points 6 months ago* (last edited 6 months ago) (3 children)

Shame we never considered bringing in construction workers as we process over a million new immigrants a year.

Edit

I'll provide some links since I am coming off as racist/anti immigrant

here's a gov of Canada link to a pilot program for construction immigration strategies

Another article

“Despite this program’s utility, it excludes applicants with experience as construction trades helpers and labourers, which is one of the top two residential construction occupations most in need of workers.”

Both of these articles are from the worst priced housing markets (BC and Toronto) and both talk about temporary pilot programs/completely ignored labor skills resulting in continued construction labor shortages, which should be nearly impossible when bringing in a million people with favorable entry to construction workers.

I'm on mobile and I don't really feel like pumping out tons of articles to prove everything I say, but essentially the marketing on immigration has been "we're bringing homebuilders to Canada to relieve the housing crush" and the reality is "we're using immigration to prop up housing and suppress wages, with little actual home builders coming in who then require training anyhow."

Another comment mentioned that it's hard to ensure training and knowledge/understanding of trade skills, and language barriers can prevent people with construction experience from being able to work. So instead of enticing Canadians to get educated in jobs we need, we import them and make them take training anyhow to keep wages down.

I'm not trying to say immigration is bad, but what's happening in Canada is in reality far far away from the wave of homebuilding immigrants that was promised

[–] n2burns@lemmy.ca 18 points 6 months ago (2 children)

What makes you think we're not? IRCC's ranking system has a preference for trades-people over unskilled labour.

[–] nahuse@sh.itjust.works 10 points 6 months ago

But isn’t an awful lot of construction work have a foundation of (relatively) unskilled labor? I mean, you don’t just magically learn how to plumb, you apprentice for it.

From my own anecdotal experience in a high immigration and rapidly expanding urban area in the US, lots of unskilled workers become skilled here. They then start their own roofing, plumbing, waste, whatever subcontracting businesses, which largely employ unskilled immigrant workers. And the cycle continues. But these employers are always hungry for workers.

It also leads to a crazy cycle of exploitative subcontracting and cash based employment, which means bad labor protection and tax avoidance by everybody involved (including large land developers who employ all these little subcontractors). But I digress. And I would hope that Canadian labor protection is a bit more robust, but I’m not sure.

The point I’m trying to make is that unskilled labor is often very very important, and has historically been at the helm of large entrepreneurial classes, at least in North America and Europe. I’m not so sure about how this works in Asian economies, and I think this doesn’t hold true in places like the Middle East where labor rights are absolutely atrocious.

[–] sbv@sh.itjust.works 5 points 6 months ago (1 children)

Immigrants are under-represented in the building trades. Although immigrants make up 23 per cent of the Canadian labour market, they comprise only about 18 per cent of workers in the construction industry.

sauce

If we're prioritizing these skills, it doesn't seem to be reflected in the labour market.

[–] villasv@lemmy.ca 2 points 6 months ago* (last edited 6 months ago) (1 children)

If we’re prioritizing these skills, it doesn’t seem to be reflected in the labour market.

How do you know, though? To say so shouldn't we compare that statistic before/after the addition of immigration programs for trades? Also, the more useful statistic should be the absolute numbers of workers, no? Otherwise you'll might obfuscate the fact that immigration program is working with other concurrent effects (like getting more Canadian trades-people workers as well via immigration from other provinces or investing in more trades-oriented education and career befits etc)

[–] sbv@sh.itjust.works 1 points 6 months ago (2 children)

I've been feeling the housing crisis for the past few years, and I've been listening to podcasts and reading articles about the headwinds construction is facing. Canada has an aging, shrinking construction sector. There aren't enough skilled or unskilled labourers to keep up with demand.

The consensus is that trend will continue. I haven't heard commentators say that immigration is revitalizing the sector. I haven't heard anything about significant policy changes that will attract out prioritize immigrant construction workers.

The closest was an announcement about a path to citizenship for people working construction illegally. But that only applies to people who are already here, so I don't think it really counts.

There was a pre-budget announcement a week or two ago saying that the feds would be jiggling the admission criteria to attract construction workers. I hope it works. It makes sense to try something new.

[–] MaxHardwood@lemmy.ca 2 points 6 months ago (1 children)

Do any of those sources you've been following call out that there are empty homes owned by investors and other types of landlords because it's cheaper to let it sit empty than lower rent? There are no homeless families waiting for housing to be built?

Our housing crisis is artificial because Canada turned real estate into a retirement plan

[–] villasv@lemmy.ca 1 points 6 months ago* (last edited 6 months ago)

So all that you have is the an absence of evidence whether the trades-focused immigration program is having an effect or not... "Revitalizing" was not the initial thesis.

[–] BlameThePeacock@lemmy.ca 8 points 6 months ago

It's not like you can just grab a certified plumber from Keyna and they can start here in Canada the next day. There's a ton of location specific information required to be a plumber. Plumbers for example are licensed provincially here, you can't even just move from Ontario to BC and start the next day. You require re-certification which takes a lot of time and costs money. That's assuming their english is good enough to even take the recertification classes and apprenticeship.

Compared to a programmer, who has zero requirement to re-train, it's more difficult.

[–] n7gifmdn@lemmy.ca 4 points 6 months ago (1 children)

Its almost like they should just remove migration restrictions and allow people to move freely instead of politicians playing politics to get the votes of stupid old people.

[–] Ultragigagigantic@lemmy.world 8 points 6 months ago

I agree. Nation states shouldn't exist, along side their imaginary borders.