I just got home from 10 days on the road - in four different hotels. The hoteliers must be thankful for the construction workforce. At breakfast every morning the room was full of big burly men (very few women) in steel toed boots and in many cases already in orange or yellow gear.
Mobility has been a main feature of the construction workforce for years - particularly civil and big engineering projects. The technical trades workforce will take on projects close to home or far away depending on demand, wages, etc. As shown in the graphic, there are communities in the country with 60%-90% more of these technical trades folks in the workforce relative to population size. For example, Estevan in Saskatchewan has 92% more workers in technical trades than the nationals level (as a share of total workers).
This puts these communities at a distinct advantage when there are projects close to home.
Where does NB sit? Moncton and Fredericton are considerably below average and Saint John is slightly above average.
Essentially, we don’t have the workforce to handle any kind of surge in demand for technical trades so what happens is that projects get put off until there is available capacity.
The thing is that I believe we will need a structural increase in the number of tradespersons in New Brunswick. IMO, we are going to need at least 40-50% more houses built per annum moving forward than in the recent past. Further, we will have substantial needs in the areas of industrial and energy engineering projects.
The jurisdictions that get the wind energy projects, the hydrogen projects, the SMR projects, etc. will increasingly be the jurisdictions that have or can attract the workforce.
A passive ‘wait and see’ approach is not good enough. We should be substantially increasing the number of workers. The LQ value in Saint John instead of being 1.05 should be 1.50 or higher. In Moncton instead of 0.84 it should be 1.5. The problem is that would require another 3,000 specialized tradespersons in Moncton alone.
We need to get this done. It will be one of the top barriers to future economic growth.
We need a step change increase in construction trades workers
Yes there is a lack of tradespeople in New Brunswick, and all of Atlantic Canada. However, many tradespersons, who call Atlantic Canada home, are transient in nature, often traveling to other regions with higher wages and year-round work opportunities.
Lower wages in Atlantic Canada, is a major factor in attracting and retaining talent. While increasing the number of technical tradespeople is crucial, policymakers and businesses must also address these challenges by improving wages, offering year-round work opportunities, and exploring ways - a variety of flexible work schedules, for example - to attract and retain talent.
No matter what the talent of the employee, those with skills to offer, and a drive to succeed, will gravitate to locations where the best rewards are offered. Directly akin to what various industries themselves do, they go where there is money to be made.
Build it and they will come needs to be replaced with skill it and they might build !