Question Period Note: GROWING THE HOUSING WORKFORCE

What is the Government of Canada doing to help grow the housing workforce?

The Government is working to meet Canada’s growing housing demand by investing in a trained workforce pipeline ready to build more affordable homes, including prefabricated and modular homes.

This is why the Government is taking action by investing almost $130 million over the next five years into the construction workforce - benefitting approximately 33,000 Canadians. These important investments will support workers across the country, including skilled tradespeople, youth, and groups underrepresented in the industry.

IF PRESSED (on labour shortages in the skilled trades / federal implementation plan that supports housing)

The Government of Canada recognizes the important role skilled trades workers play in building homes, powering communities, and maintaining infrastructure.

That’s why it is investing in a skilled workforce to support Canada’s Housing Plan and speed up the pace of housing construction, including:

Up to $40.5 million over the next five years in projects across Canada that support trades related to homebuilding, including efforts to get more women and underrepresented groups into the construction industry benefitting approximately 6,000 participants;

$8.6 million over two years for crucial programming to help Canadians explore, and prepare for, careers in the skilled trades by, for example, accessing vital work experience in the construction industry. This programming will benefit approximately 15,000 pre-apprentices, including youth and other groups facing barriers to entering the trades.

Over $40 million in training ending March 31, 2028 for trades and non-trades workers in green buildings and retrofits benefitting over 9,500 participants; and

$34.6 million in foreign credential recognition, where it is anticipated over 3,000 construction sector participants will directly benefit from improved processes.

To help address the impact of tariffs on Canadian workers, the Government of Canada announced a new investment in new Workforce Alliances. These Alliances will bring together employers, unions, training institutions, and industry groups to work on ways to tackle urgent labour market challenges and coordinate public and private investments in skills development to help businesses and workers succeed in the changing labour market. In addition, a new Sectoral Workforce Investment Fund was announced to help businesses in key sectors and regions recruit and retain the workforce they need.

ESDC supports priority mandate 4: “Making housing more affordable by unleashing the power of public-private cooperation, catalysing a modern housing industry, and creating new careers in the skilled trades”, and will work closely with Build Canada Homes on the workforce component of this priority.

ESDC helps the construction sector by providing support to:

Individuals, including young people and newcomers, helping them access training for well paying jobs in construction.

Employers, to attract and retain a skilled and diverse workforce.

The sector more broadly, building workforce planning capacity and creating talent pipelines to meet demand and capitalize on opportunities.

The two largest federal investments that broadly seek to increase the skills and supply of available workers in Canada’s construction industry are:

The Canadian Apprenticeship Strategy:

Support a trades workforce that is skilled, inclusive, certified, and productive that includes a suite of programs to support skilled trades workers

Labour Market Agreements:

Partner with the provinces and territories to help individuals access training and employment supports, including a new reskilling investment to train 50,000 workers affected by U.S. tariffs and global market shifts.

Other ESDC programs that support the residential construction sector, include: the Indigenous Skills and Employment Training Program, Skills and Partnership Fund, Foreign Credential Recognition Program, Temporary Foreign Worker Program, Youth Employment and Skills Strategy, Sectoral Workforce Solutions Program, Future Skills Centre, Skills for Success Program, Community Workforce Development Program, and the Sustainable Jobs Training Fund.

Budget 2024 provided new funding commitments for existing measures on housing workforce development: 

$90 million for the Canadian Apprenticeship Strategy’s Apprenticeship Service to help create placements for apprentices with small and medium-sized employers.

$10 million for the Canadian Apprenticeship Strategy’s Skilled Trades Awareness and Readiness Program to encourage Canadians to explore and prepare for careers in the skilled trades.

$50 million over two years, for the Foreign Credential Recognition Program. At least half of this amount will be to streamline foreign credential recognition in the construction sector to help skilled trades workers build more homes.

During the recent federal election, the Liberal Party of Canada announced a plan to build up Canada’s skilled trades workforce, including by providing a new Apprenticeship Grant of up to $8,000 for registered apprentices, doubling the funding of the Union Training and Innovation Program from $25 million to $50 million, establishing a capital funding stream, upholding the Apprenticeship Service program, and increasing labour mobility for skilled trades people between provinces and territories to address labour shortages.

Canada is facing a housing crisis, requiring millions of new homes in the coming years. To meet affordability and demand, the residential construction industry must add 187,300 workers by 2034, factoring in retirements.

The construction sector overall accounts for 7% of Canada’s GDP, employing over 1.5 million people in 2023 and is made up mostly of small businesses (e.g. 60% of industry firms are micro businesses consisting of fewer than five employees).

The sector also had a labour force share of newcomers of 19.4% in 2022 (lower than the share in the overall labour force at 26.8%) and had a higher representation of Indigenous workers than the overall labour force (5.1% vs 4.1% in 2021).

The residential construction workforce includes skilled trades occupations, such as approximately 30 Red Seal trades (e.g. bricklayers, carpenters, construction craft workers, gasfitters, plumbers, roofers, welders) and other skilled trades (e.g. non-Red Seal trades such as scaffolders, draftspersons, door and window fabricators). However, many occupations and workers are outside of unions and Red Seal trades, with general labourers accounting for approximately 25% of the construction labour force (there are over 250 occupations in this ‘catch all’ classification).

A reliable way to speed up home construction is to manufacture entire or components of homes in a climate-controlled factory. This method has been shown to produce homes up to 50% faster than traditional construction, requiring less labour, especially skilled labour, currently in short supply.

The scale of the housing supply gap is such that additional workers will be needed in the traditional homebuilding sector even as efforts are made to shift the industry towards manufactured homebuilding.