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Construction demands in Ontario remain elevated through 2029 · Kvetch & Release

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  And although activity in Ontario's residential sector slowed in twenty twenty three and response to
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  rising borrowing and construction costs, the province's non residential sector continued its steady growth
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  trend and shows little sign of slowing until at least the late twenty twenties.
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  That is according to build Force Canada's new outlook for the sector twenty twenty four
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  to twenty thirty three Construction and Maintenance Looking Forward Report for Ontario Today. Joining
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  me right now to discuss and break it all down for us is the executive
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  director of Build Force Canada, Bill for Area. How are you doing today,
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  Bill? Very good, Thank you for having me on. Yeah,
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  thank you so much for joining me here. So let's just you know,
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  start broadly here talking about for Ontario as a whole. Sounds like in the
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  non residential sector, things are looking pretty good for the next at least five
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  years. That's absolutely true. There's been a lot of investment in the province
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  and we continue to see that investment going into all five regions of the province
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  and that is certainly driving construction demand and has been driving construction demand since coming
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  out of the pandemic in twenty twenty one. And what I mean, I'm
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  not asking for a specific number here, but in terms of the breakdown between
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  public investment and construction and private investment in construction, what are we looking at
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  here just generally speaking, well, back of the envelope, I'd say it's
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  probably around the sixty percent mix in favor of the public sector. Are a
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  lot of the investments that are going into into non residential construction right now are
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  primarily healthcare, but road works as well, and a lot of that is
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  driven by the population growth that we've seen in the province. And of course
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  you've got our province broken down with Central, Eastern, GTA, Northern and
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  southwestern. We're here in Windsor, Ontario, so I was wondering if you
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  could walk us through what the forecast is for southwest Ontario. Well, it's
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  pretty strong, and a lot of it is I mean, many of these
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  investments are already well now. In the Atlantis investment is a significant investment.
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  We're also tracking the Windsor a q Care Hospital, which will begin around twenty
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  twenty seven. We're looking at significant investments in the Bruce Peninsula and to Bruce
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  Power and there are a number of retooling projects going on right now in Windsor
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  with respect to the auto industry, all of which is coming together at the
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  same time as we are seeing a bit of a decline. Now obviously we're
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  in the latter stages of construction at the Gordy how Bridge, but investment has
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  been very, very strong in the region. And what about all the people
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  who are going to be needed to do this ongoing work here? Obviously,
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  you know, we're looking at a situation in Ontario where I've done reporting in
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  the past, where we hear that you know, a lot of people are
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  to be leading the workforce over the next number of years in very large numbers.
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  How is that going to come into play with things? Well, what
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  we've been tracking across the province is about nineteen percent of the current workforces anticipated
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  to enter into retirement over the next ten years. In the region, it's
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  slightly less, but we are tracking the need for an expansion of the existing
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  workforce in the region by about eleven eight hundred workers. And when that's added
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  to the thirteen thousand, nine hundred that we anticipate in southwestern Ontario will be
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  retiring during that period, means the industry is going to have to hire an
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  additional twenty five thousand, seven hundred workers, and we are just not seeing
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  the pace of new entrants. Despite best efforts on the part of the industry
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  and government and a slight increase that we've seen in recruitment into the industry,
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  we still anticipate the industry may be about seven five hundred workers short by twenty
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  thirty three, twenty thirty four. You know, it's a big number,
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  it's significant, but I know that the industry is still focused on becoming more
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  diverse and more inclusive in terms of the labor force of the construction industry.
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  What are some of the efforts that are being done to seek out people from
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  underrepresented groups like women, Indigenous communities, or even Canadian newcomers. Well,
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  the construction industry has been very focused on this for some time, and when
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  we look at the construction on site workforce, so those individuals that are actually
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  on site actually building the assets. We've been tracking and trying to promote careers
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  in construction to women, and we know that women only make up about five
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  percent of the on site workforce. So we've been looking at and seeing a
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  significant increase in the overall numbers of young women in particular coming into the industry
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  over the past eighteen months, and in part that's because of the focus the
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  industry has had on trying to recruit young women into the trades with the support
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  of the federal government as well as the provincial governments, and in part that
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  message is starting to get out there and I think young women. Again,
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  we haven't seen the latest registration numbers for twenty twenty three, but certainly from
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  what we've been hearing, those numbers are going to be quite strong. Beyond
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  that, of course, the industry has been very focused on trying to reach
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  out to other underrepresented groups and trying to find a way to increase their overall
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  participation in the construction labor force, and the industry has done a relatively good
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  job with the promotion of careers to individuals from indigenous groups. We've also been
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  doing trying to find a better way to integrate newcomers to the country into the
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  construction workforce and also in promoting careers in the construction in construction to those individuals
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  that are newly arrived in Canada. Again, this has been an ongoing effort
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  on part of the industry for a great many years, and with the recent
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  supports from both the federal and provincial governments, are starting to see a bit
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  of an uptick, which is quite positive and we hope to see that trend
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  continue. Yeah. Absolutely, So. The last thing I would like to
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  ask about real quickly, understand we're running out of time here as well,
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  apprenticeship registration in Ontario and how that has been able to affect the situation.
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  Well, like I said, we haven't seen the twenty twenty three numbers yet,
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  but certainly from what we are here anecdotally from the industry as well as
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  the tracking that we've been doing, those numbers are up, and in particular
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  for young women, the number of young women registering into construction apprenticeship programs seems
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  to be up, and that was a trend that we started to see coming
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  out of the pandemic and even slightly before the pandemic, but it really has
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  accelerated in the last little while, and again that speaks to the efforts of
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  the industry to continue to promote diversity in the construction workforce, but as well
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  the support that we've been receiving from both federal and provincial governments to try and
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  assist the industry in promoting careers in the trades to young people, but in
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  particular to individuals from underrepresented groups, including women. Absolutely. Well, Hey,
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  I want to thank you so much for your time today, Bill.
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  Looking like there's pretty good outlook here for the next five years, but we'll
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  hope to talk before twenty twenty nine. Okay, okay, then, thank
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  you so much. Cheers. Bill Ferraria is the executive director of Build Force
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  Canada, which is a national industry led organization that represents all sectors of Canada's
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  construction industry. And again we were hearing there construction demands in Ontario remain elevated
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  through twenty twenty nine, propped up by public investment, private investment. We've
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  got a lot going on down here in Windsor