March 28, 2008

Reaction: Ontario Budget

Budget helps address construction industry’s fears of future labour shortages

Industry now must lobby for share of training funds

VINCE VERSACE

staff writer

The province’s $1.5 billion commitment to skills development and long-term training has caught the eye of many construction industry officials worried about projected labour shortages.

“Anything we can do to plug those deficits and shortages will help,” says David Surplis, acting president of the Council of Ontario Construction Associations.

“This emphasis on training helps us move in the right direction to help with growing skills shortages.”

At the core of the Liberals’ first budget of their second mandate, released on Tuesday, is a $1.5 billion Skill to Jobs Action Plan and an additional $1 billion for municipal core infrastructure investment.

The objective of the job plan is to train unemployed workers for new careers in growth sectors, expand and increase apprenticeship numbers, invest in and build more college and university infrastructure and provide educational cost assistance.

“The skills training and apprenticeship funding is fantastic, in a general sense, but as an industry we have to do the first part and attract people to our industry,” says Rob Bradford, executive director of the Ontario Road Builders’ Association.

A $355 million Second Career Strategy unveiled in the budget will assist 20,000 unemployed workers receive long-term training to help launch them into new well-paying jobs. The government has allocated $75 million over the next three years, increasing to $50 million annually by 2011, to expand apprenticeship training. The Liberals hope to expand the number of apprentices in Ontario to 32,500.

Another $45 million over three years for the Apprenticeship Enhancement Fund to buy state-of-the-art equipment essential for technical training was also noted in the budget.

The government’s initiative to expand not just apprenticeships numbers but the physical capacity to train apprentices, was applauded by Paul Charette, chairman of the Canadian Construction Association.

“This falls in step with what we are trying to do with the Association of Canadian Community Colleges to help get more funding from the federal government to create more spaces,” says Charette. “This is great news.”

Ontario faces a projected labour shortage of over 360,000 people by 2025, according to Ontario’s Workforce Shortage Coalition. An estimated 50,000 construction workers will be needed to replace retirees by 2015. An additional 35,000 workers will be needed to meet construction demands during that same period.

“Our industry is in dire need and this $1.5 billion investment will help. We need people from office and professional staff to skilled trades,” notes Charette.

Education spending of $18.8 billion, through Grants for Student, $385 million over three years for an annual Textbook and Technology Grant and $27 million over three years for a Distance Grant to assist students from rural and remote areas with travel costs to attend college or university, can benefit the construction industry’s future worker supply line, adds Charette.

Pat Dillon, Provincial Building and Construction Trades Council of Ontario, says the infrastructure and training dollars jointly tackle labour shortage challenges in construction.

“It is very important to have jobs to train on and the infrastructure training allows us to do that,” explains Dillon. “An opportunity for apprenticeship training in construction is a job.”

Various Ontario sectors will compete for the apprenticeship dollars just as they already compete against one another for skilled labour, says Dillon. The construction industry must prepare for that.

“The construction industry needs a strong, united voice to ensure that our industry gets the amount of money it needs for training,” says Dillon.

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