Rebuild Canada’s workforce NOW

PILING Industry News

Canada’s construction industry urging all governments to Rebuild Canada’s workforce NOW

By Mary Van Buren, President, Canadian Construction Association

The Canadian Construction Association (CCA) is sounding the alarm about the urgent need for workers in construction through an industry call to action to “Rebuild Canada’s workforce NOW”.

“Canada is facing its most severe labour shortage in over 50 years – nearly 1 million jobs are unfilled,” says Mary Van Buren, CCA president. “The situation is especially acute for the construction sector – we have over 81,000 openings now. This also means the essential infrastructure projects that 38 million Canadians rely on every day risk being cancelled or delayed.”

The federal government has an ambitious growth plan – one that includes repairing, maintaining, and retrofitting aging infrastructure while also building for future climate resilience. Retirements and recruitment challenges will be a heavy blow to Canada’ future economic growth if steps aren’t taken to rebuild Canada’s workforce now.

As job vacancy rates grow and competition for talent becomes more fierce, the federal government needs to expand the Temporary Foreign Workers program and facilitate the entry of immigrants interested in working in the construction sector.

Industry representatives met with parliamentarians for CCA’s Hill Day on November 15 to urge the federal government to: • modernize Canada’s immigration policy and point system to better recognize tradespeople and construction labourers.

• work with the provinces to ensure skills matching is properly funded and supported; and

• update the Temporary Foreign Worker program to allow seamless access for the construction industry.

Skilled tradespeople cannot be created overnight. It’s vital that we turn to immigration and temporary foreign labour to help alleviate the choke points created by the workforce shortage.

Help spread the word by visiting https://can.cca-acc. com/cca/rebuild-canadas-workforce-now/.

ABOUT CCA Across Canada, CCA represents more than 20,000 member firms drawn from 63 local and provincial integrated partner associations. CCA gives voice to the public policy, legal and standards development goals of contractors, suppliers and allied business professionals working in, or with, Canada’s heavy civil, institutional, commercial, and industrial construction industry.

The construction sector is one of Canada’s largest employers and a major contributor to the country’s economic success. The industry – 70 per cent of which is made up of small and medium enterprises – employs more than 1.4 million Canadians and contributes 7.5 per cent of Canada’s Gross Domestic Product. l