Senior Project Coordinator – Peterborough, Ont. – Matheson Constructors
Site Superintendent – Vancouver, B.C. – Kindred Construction
Senior Estimator – Vaughan, Ont. – Buttcon
Digital Construction Coordinator – Winnipeg, Man. – Bird Construction
Superintendent – Calgary, Alta. – Delnor Construction Managers
Senior Project Planner – Pickering, Ont. – CRG Energy Projects
Construction Supervisor – Toronto, Ont. – Formstructures Construction
Controller, Single Family – Calgary, Alta. – Jayman BUILT
The Ontario government has announced it is investing up to an additional $260 million through the Skills Development Fund (SDF) Training Stream to tackle the province’s labour shortage.
This will be the largest round of funding since the SDF Training Stream was launched in 2021 and brings Ontario’s total investment through the Fund to up to $1.4 billion. The government is also investing over $7.2 million through a previous round of SDF to train nearly 3,300 workers in the Kitchener area and across Ontario.
“Our government’s record investments in the Skills Development Fund are helping connect workers here in Kitchener and across the province to better jobs and bigger paycheques,” said Premier Doug Ford. “By continuing to work for workers and make these important investments, we are also tackling Ontario’s labour shortage and bringing back good-paying jobs in manufacturing and the skilled trades.”
Building on the success of the previous four rounds, Ontario will open the fifth round of SDF Training Stream on July 29, 2024, to address challenges for recruiting, training and upskilling workers for in-demand sectors such as manufacturing, construction and technology. Organizations eligible for funding include employers, employment service, training providers, labour unions, community organizations, business and industry organizations, municipalities, hospitals, Indigenous Band offices, Indigenous skills and employment training agreement holders and service system managers.
“Under Premier Ford, our government has revived our province’s manufacturing and construction sectors – and the key to our success is Ontario’s workers,” said David Piccini, Minister of Labour, Immigration, Training and Skills Development. “That’s why our government is launching the biggest round of our Skills Development Fund yet by investing up to $260 million to train even more workers across the province. Whether your passion is developing the next generation of EVs, building nuclear power stations or creating homes for new families, our government is making sure you have the opportunity to thrive.”
The announcement was made in Kitchener, where the government also announced an investment of over $7.2 million through the fourth round of SDF to train nearly 3,300 local workers and jobseekers for careers in manufacturing and construction. This brings Ontario’s total investment in training for Kitchener area workers to over $20 million. These projects include:
Practice Lead – Abbotsford, B.C. – SiteTechnology
Senior Estimator, Pipeline – Edmonton, Alta. – Ledcor
Vice President, Procurement – Toronto, Ont. – Infrastructure Ontario
Estimator, Sewer & Water Construction – Vancouver, B.C. – Castle Rock Enterprises
Senior Construction Project Manger – North Vancouver, B.C. – Naikoon Contracting
Project Manager, Electrical Construction – Vancouver, B.C. – Centre Electric
Design Manager – Nelson, B.C. – Kalesnikoff
Project Engineer – Richmond, B.C. – Flatiron Construction
Superintendent – Winnipeg, Man. – Aecon Group
Construction Project Manager – Saskatoon, Sask. – Saskatchewan Research Council
Virtual Design & Construction Services Manager – Mississauga, Ont. – EllisDon
Project Director, Calgary Greenline – Calgary, Alta. – AtkinsRealis
Senior Risk Manager – Edmonton, Alta. – PCL Construction
National Construction Safety Officer – Calgary, Alta. – Haztech Energy Corp.
Site Superintendent, Civil – Victoria, B.C. – Stone Pacific Contracting
Project Manager, Civil – Kelowna, B.C. – Allnorth Consultants
Senior Estimator/Project Manager, Construction – Vancouver, B.C. – Brighouse Civil
Project Director, Commercial/Institutional – Calgary, Alta. – Bird Construction
Workforce Manager – Vancouver, B.C. – PCL Construction
Environmental Manager, Infrastructure – Burnaby, B.C. – Ledcor
Chief Estimator, Buildings – Toronto, Ont. – Graham
Senior Highway Design Engineer – Nelson, B.C. – BC Public Service
Business Development Director – Toronto, Ont. – Aecon
Senior Environmental Manager – Richmond, B.C. – Flatiron Construction
Senior Marketing Specialist – Markham, Ont. – Premier Construction Software
Project Engineer, Pattullo Bridge Replacement – New Westminster, B.C. – TI Corp
Alberta’s government is investing $43 million to plan the Advanced Skills Centre at NAIT, training an additional 4,200 apprentices yearly.
“This state-of-the-art facility will raise the profile of apprenticeship education and attract and graduate the workers the province needs,” said NAIT president and CEO Laura Jo Gunter. “By providing experiential training, NAIT will help ensure Alberta’s economy remains prosperous.”
Each year NAIT will see between 30,000 to 40,000 students enrolled in programs across its campuses. Of those students studying in full-time programs, well over 30% enrolled in apprenticeship and skilled trades programs.
Officials say the ASC will deliver the most comprehensive, leading-edge apprenticeship and technology-based education in the world, focused on training in four key sectors: construction, transportation, manufacturing, and energy.
“With so many projects on the horizon, the province’s future has never looked brighter,” said Jason Idler, chief operating officer, heavy industrial, PCL Construction. “This state-of-the art facility goes a long way to ensuring we have the workforce we need today to build the infrastructure we need tomorrow.”
Planning funds will help prepare for construction, which will start in 2025. The centre will add 640,000 square feet of new, state-of-the-art learning space to NAIT’s main campus and support the evolution and growth of programming over time, allowing NAIT to meet emerging needs to support Alberta’s diverse and competitive industries.
This investment is crucial for ensuring students and faculty have access to the most up-to-date learning and training spaces. In some cases, purpose-built facilities at NAIT are more than 60 years old and have reached their end of life, requiring replacement. When construction is completed, the Advanced Skills Centre will include flexible and adaptable learning spaces that can be expanded to accommodate program growth or the introduction of new programs to meet labour market demand.
The ASC will also allow for the repatriation of programs that have been practicing in near isolation. Plumbers, for instance, have learned at Patricia Campus on Edmonton’s west end since the mid-1970s. Welders have been stationed at Souch Campus, in the south, since the late-’90s.
School officials say having them back on Main Campus will bring together all of its trades programs in ways that they have never considered. The structural flexibility of the ASC will also allow for select trades and technologies to be quickly ramped up, helping to provide an influx of skilled workers where they’re needed most.
Andrew Hansen is the founder and CEO of SitePartners, a specialized marketing and consulting agency built to serve the industrial sector. He recently joined Breakthrough Academy’s Contractor Evolution podcast to discuss employer branding, workforce development and major shifts in the B2B market. Check out his insights below or listen to the full podcast here.
Whether you’ve invested in it or not, right now your brand is talking to buyers, job seekers and the industry as a whole.
What’s it saying?
Employer brands have become especially important in recent years as construction’s labour crisis has worsened and businesses compete for talent. It has become a massive part of the work we do at SitePartners, a specialized marketing and consulting agency built to serve the industrial sector.
Before the COVID-19 pandemic, much of our time was spent helping our clients attract the right work. Now, as the industry has continued to grow and demand has taken off, roughly half of our focus has shifted to helping clients attract and retain the right people.
While many firms invest a lot into their marketing programs, not much of that is geared toward recruitment and building an employer brand that attracts talent. But whether you spend time and money on it or not, job seekers will form a perception of your company.
Here’s something we stress to our clients: If you don’t tell your story, someone else will. A big first step is reflecting on your organization and its place in the industry. Take some time to understand the unique things about your business that make it what it is. Once you’ve zeroed in on that, don’t shy away from it. Be bold. Own it completely.
This will scare away some candidates, but attract ones who align with your work and the culture you have created. At SitePartners, we are proud to be a specialized firm that only serves the industrial sector.
For many professionals, it’s not the kind of work that interests them, and that’s OK. The ones who do apply are excited about industrial work. They love forestry, big machines, manufacturing, wearing steel-toe boots and being on a job site. That increases the chance of a successful recruitment journey.
As the demographics of industrial workers shift towards younger candidates, expectations for the hiring process are also changing.
These workers are used to using polished tools like Amazon, Netflix and Instagram. They’re used to a consumer-level experience tailored to them.
Fumbling around uploading PDFs and getting stuck on clunky third-party sites or a company site with low-quality photo and video assets is a bad experience. It’s also a huge missed opportunity for you to communicate your company brand and what working there will be like. If you really care about that employee experience, own that touchpoint from start to finish. Candidates will feel it and it will put you a step above your competitors.
And if you control that experience, you can get your message and assets in front of those candidates. Choosing a job is one of the biggest decisions someone can make, aside from buying a house or finding a spouse. They are going to pick through your website and social media channels to see what your story is. The application and hiring experience says a lot to potential employees about what a company will be like to work for.
Yes. I can almost hear you rolling your eyes through the screen. But hear me out. Investing in your personal brand pays off.
Rather than only posting jobs and content on a corporate page, post using your personal account. If you have invested time in building your brand as an executive and industry leader, this will drive results. This can be a passionate story about the kind of candidate you are looking for with dynamic photos. It will always outperform a corporate page post.
But this means posting even when you aren’t seeking employees. You started your business for a reason. Post about it. Talk about it. Be dynamic. Be personable. It may take you out of your comfort zone but if you are authentic, people will see that. This is incredibly useful for job seekers. They want to know the type of people they could be working for.
Storytelling works. It’s something humans have been drawn to for thousands of years. We are hooked by a good story. Use that in your messaging. If you had someone join you as a labourer and they worked their way up to vice president, that’s a captivating story. This is something that the biggest construction brands do on a daily basis. You can too.
Good talent isn’t looking for a job tomorrow. They are educating themselves over time. So telling those stories consistently is key.
Authenticity is just as important. Don’t be somebody you’re not. Talk on social media the same way you do to your employees. If you attract talent and they get hired, they will find that out anyway. During our interview process at SitePartners, we almost try to scare people away, telling them up front that the work is hard, it’s dynamic and we move fast. We want to be clear about what it’s like to work here so people know what they are signing up for.
You don’t need to make a huge financial investment or hire a big marketing firm to start getting results. Here are a few quick steps that any company can take to get started:
B2B Data highlights the importance of branding
At SitePartners, all of our work is driven by data and strategy. We never go into a creative process blind hoping for the best. The data shows that it isn’t just the workforce that’s shifting. The entire B2B sector is changing.
Research shows 94% of B2B buyers considering a major purchase are researching products or services online before ever contacting a salesperson. And by the time they do, they are 57% of the way through their decision-making process. These customers are engaging with your brand and forming a perception about your company before they even talk to you.
Buyers of complex deals spend roughly 17% of their time talking to sales. And if they are talking to three vendors, a common situation, they are only talking to you for an even smaller percentage of that time. Not only that, nearly half of these B2B buyers are under 40 and extremely comfortable using digital channels. They expect a polished digital experience. Research also shows that these major B2B decisions are only being made once every five years, meaning that only 20% of your customers are looking to spend in 2024.
With so little direct contact with digitally sophisticated, young B2B buyers, how do you stand out?
You have to use your brand. Those buyers are still consuming case studies, project announcements, social media posts, website copy and interacting with your brand in the years leading up to that big purchase. The benefits of investing time in your brand can be huge. Roughly 16% of B2B buyers found that if a brand’s content was useful to them, they went on to buy their product or service and 33% noted that if the content was high quality it gave them a positive perception of the company.
Your company’s brand is communicating with the industry right now. Are you in control of what it’s saying?
Senior Construction Estimator – Surrey, B.C. – Western Pacific Enterprises
Project Manager, Construction – Mississauga, Ont. – Bird Construction
Senior Project Manager – Vancouver, B.C. – Govan Brown & Associates
Director of Capital Projects – Halifax, N.S. – Government of Nova Scotia
Preconstruction Manager – Vancouver, B.C. – Wesgroup Properties
Director, Building Services – London, Ont. – City of London
Operations Vice President – Vancouver, B.C. – Gryphon Development
Director of Construction – Calgary, Alta. – FLINT Corp
CEO – Edmonton, Alta. – Award Construction
In response to the federal government’s cap on the number of international student study permit applications over the next two years, Ontario announced plans to prioritize public postsecondary programs for in-demand careers, including the skilled trades.
“We are protecting the integrity of our province’s postsecondary education system by attracting the best and brightest international students to Ontario to study in areas that are critical to our economy,” said Jill Dunlop, minister of colleges and universities. “We have been working with postsecondary institutions to ensure international students are enrolled in the programs to support a pipeline of graduates for in-demand jobs.”
Ontario says it will allocate 96% of permit applications to publicly assisted colleges and universities, with the remaining 4% allotted to Ontario’s language schools, private universities and other institutions. Career colleges will not receive any applications.
Applications will be allocated to institutions based on the following criteria:
French-language enrolment will also be prioritized as employers compete for workers with French-language skills. The government says it will work with colleges and universities to support them in standing up and transitioning to programming that is aligned with labour market needs and support Ontario’s economic growth.
To protect international postsecondary students and ensure they have a positive and rewarding experience when studying in Ontario, the government:
International students may apply for a post-graduation work permit after graduating from an eligible designated learning institution (DLI) in Canada. Ontario approves DLIs under the joint provincial-federal International Student Program. DLIs are eligible to enrol international students in programs of study six months in duration or longer on a study permit issued by Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada.
As part of the changes announced by the federal government in January 2024, international students who begin a program at a publicly assisted college that is delivered through a private partner will not be eligible for a post-graduation work permit starting on May 15, 2024.
The BC Construction Association (BCCA) announced that it has completed delivery on the most far-reaching construction trade apprenticeship drive ever undertaken in B.C., surpassing its funding objective by $2.280 million. The Apprenticeship Services workforce development program was financed through the Government of Canada’s Canadian Apprenticeship Strategy’s Apprenticeship Service. The BCCA noted that the initiative was completed ahead of schedule and within budget.
Employers who registered up to four first-year apprentices in BCCA’s Apprenticeship Services program could qualify to earn up to $40,000 in cash incentives over two years. Since launching in September 2022, the financial incentives offered through Apprenticeship Services have resulted in the hiring and registering of 2075 apprentices in 37 Red Seal trades, and sent payments to more than 1020 qualified employers. Over $15.725 million has been injected into the B.C. economy through BCCA’s Apprenticeship Services program.
“I’m proud of the team at BCCA who delivered the Apprenticeship Services project ahead of schedule and under budget, far exceeding important targets set by the Federal government. In addition, we were able to transfer $780,000 from our operational budget into the program as a result of our team’s efficiencies, to the direct benefit of BC’s construction employers and apprentices,” states BCCA President Chris Atchison. “Canadian taxpayers deserve nothing less than the efficient and reliable stewardship exemplified by BCCA’s outstanding management of programs like Apprenticeship Services.”
Leveraging its strong industry network and a highly successful Builders Life ad campaign, BCCA surpassed important funder targets, including in the amount of financial incentives paid and the diversity of apprentices. In addition, Apprenticeship Services drove program participants to key industry partners such as SkilledTradesBC.
The province-wide initiative was delivered to small- and medium-sized construction employers to help them overcome the financial barriers inherent in hiring and training first-year apprentices. In-demand trades such as electrical and plumbing benefitted from financial incentives.
“At a time when BC’s construction industry faces critical workforce shortages, BCCA has stepped up to support employers through workforce development programs like Apprenticeship Services,” continues Atchison. “We’re doing our part to mitigate the ongoing workforce shortage in construction. The current and foreseeable gap is too large to meet BC’s very real housing and infrastructure needs.”
A total of 1338 Apprenticeship Services program employers became signatories of the Builders Code Acceptable Worksite Culture Pledge, as part of a BCCA support and training program designed to improve worksite culture, increase worker attraction and retention, and eliminate harassment, bullying, hazing and discrimination. Continuing to improve and strengthen diversity within BC’s construction industry was a key component of funding objectives and remains an ongoing goal of the BCCA.
BCCA’s Apprenticeship Services program formally closes on March 31, 2024.
A new report from BuildForce Canada found that the nation’s immigration system favours university-educated applicants.
BuildForce officials stated that changes are needed to the immigration system to ensure the construction sector can respond to growth, and deliver on key public-policy priorities such as building new housing and greening infrastructure.
The report found that of the 1.3 million principal applicant landed immigrants admitted between 1980 and 2021 still in the labour force, 69% held a bachelor’s degree or higher. Individuals with apprenticeship certificates or non-apprenticeable trade certificates accounted for only 4% of total admissions. Looking just at individuals in the labour force, between 1980 and 1990, university-educated individuals made up 34% of total primary applicant admissions, while individuals with apprenticeship and non-apprenticeable trade certificates 9%. Between 2016 and 2021, the combined university educated primary applicants admitted accounted for 75% of primary applicant admissions, whereas non-apprenticeable and apprenticeship certificate holders had declined to just 2%.
BuildForce stated that it believes further evidence of the bias in the selection criteria can be found in the 2022 Express Entry Year-end Report. In 2022, 46% of the candidates receiving ITAs (invitation to apply) held master’s degrees, 40% had post-secondary credentials of three or more years, and 4% held PhDs. Of the top 15 professions receiving ITAs, software engineers received the greatest number of ITAs at 3,848. Despite the strong demand for healthcare and construction workers since 2020, no professions in demand in these sectors were found in the top 15. However, since 2020, 2,778 university professors and lecturers received ITAs; 955 alone were granted ITAs in 2022.
The report was developed with input from an industry Steering Committee consisting of representatives from Canada’s Building Trades Unions, the Canadian Construction Association, the Canadian Home Builders’ Association, Merit Canada, and the Mechanical Contractors Association of Canada.
It recommends the adoption of a series of consensus principles by governments to ensure the construction sector can better access skilled workers from abroad in an effort to address projected shortages of skilled labour created by rising construction demands and changing demographics.
“Construction activity is projected to grow across the country over the next decade, driven by more than $450 billion worth of non-residential projects that are taking place across the country and renewed growth in the residential sector in the middle and later years of the 2020s,” said Bill Ferreira, executive director of BuildForce Canada. “Our labour market information models, which do not take into account additional labour demands created by the impetus to build millions of new housing units or to meet Canada’s net-zero targets, suggest that the industry could face a recruiting gap of more than 85,000 workers by 2033. Closing this gap will require the industry to hire from a variety of sources, including from among the hundreds of thousands of new permanent and non-permanent residents that are projected to be admitted to Canada in the coming years. The difficulty is, the system does not currently support this objective.”
The report found that Canada’s immigration system favours university-educated applicants. BuildForce noted that absent change, this may create challenges for the construction sector, which depends on recruiting large numbers of individuals with trade certificates or other competencies that are currently overlooked in the immigration process. Particularly in demand are technical trades and transportation officers and controllers (NOC Category 7), which collectively account for more than three-quarters of the total construction labour force, and who have struggled to obtain entry under Canada’s existing Express Entry system.
To better support industries like construction that are strongly dependent on skilled trades workers, the BuildForce report recommends four guiding reform principles be adopted.
The system currently and disproportionately favours applicants with high education levels. In so doing, it effectively excludes others who possess the valuable skills or the willingness to work in construction that Canada requires. The system should be reformed to better reflect domestic labour force priorities, and award additional selection points based on those needs. Doing so would increase the likelihood that skilled and unskilled trade workers would be invited to apply for immigration under industry-specific, Provincial Nominee Program, and general Express Entry intakes.
Immigration is a shared responsibility among the federal, provincial, and territorial governments. Given that the provinces and territories now comprise more than half of the total immigration selections annually, greater coordination is required among these programs and with the federal system to ensure that goals are transparent and aligned, and to enable industry to coordinate domestic training and recruitment programs with the projected inflow of permanent residents.
The federal government should consult more broadly with Canadian industries, including the construction sector, when establishing national immigration targets. Doing so will ensure selection policies and priorities better align with domestic labour market requirements.
Although credential recognition is within the purview of the provinces and territories, the federal government can and should play a role in ensuring the provinces and territories adopt competencies-based skills assessments of foreign credentials. Doing so can help ensure individuals with foreign credentials are matched to job opportunities that align with their skills.
“While the construction industry will always prioritize the recruitment of domestic workers, the changing career preferences of Canadian youth and rising retirement levels have made it more challenging for the industry to keep pace with accelerating construction demands,” said Sean Strickland, chair of BuildForce Canada. “Aligning immigration priorities more closely with the current and future needs of Canadian industries is therefore imperative.”
BuildForce added that implementing these reforms will enable Canada to build a more adaptable and responsive immigration framework that effectively addresses the acute skilled labour shortages faced by industries like construction, and which contribute to the continued growth and prosperity of Canada’s economy and society.
