More houses are being built in Alberta despite a skilled labour shortage
CBC
Amid a skilled labour shortage and a population boom, Alberta's construction industry is having to get creative to meet the ongoing demand for housing in the province, say some homebuilders.
From January to October, 37,969 new residential construction projects were started in Alberta, 34 per cent more than the previous year, according to Statistics Canada.
In October alone, Alberta recorded the second-highest level in housing starts compared to other provinces at 4,394 — numbers the province hasn't seen in a decade.
But the growth comes in the context of what Alberta's Independent Contractors and Businesses Association (ICBA) — one of largest construction associations in Canada — is describing as an "unsustainable labour shortage" in the province. The association says this could threaten the stability of homebuilding operations in the coming years.
In a new report, ICBA Alberta said the province will need at least 22,000 new workers to sustain the construction industry into the year 2033.
"Labour shortages are reaching a critical point and we need to rethink immigration and entry requirements," said Mike Martens, president of ICBA Alberta, in a release.
"It is not a person's education but the alignment of their skills with domestic economic needs that determines their contribution. Nowhere is this clearer than in Alberta's construction labour market."
Ryan Scott, CEO of Avalon Master Builder, a Calgary-based homebuilder, said it's been difficult to keep pace with demand over the past three years.
"Our industry has a lot of peaks and valleys, and we've had a lot of aging out and not a lot of new people coming in. So it's made it a challenge to deal with the demand of 100,000 people coming to the city in a [year's] time."
To cope, Scott said they've had to get creative.
In addition to employing new software and upping automation, the company has also turned to constructing modular homes that capitalize on an available workforce elsewhere.
The different parts of the building are constructed in Manitoba, said Scott, and then shipped to Calgary, where the pieces are put together using a crane.
"Manitoba's labour market is completely different from ours. They have people ready to work and available to work," said Scott.
The savings on labour don't quite offset the costs of transporting the prefabricated homes or the heavy machinery needed for assembly just yet, Scott added.
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