New Brunswick construction industry facing high retirement numbers over next decade

The New Brunswick construction industry is going to see a high rate of retirements in the next decade.

Growth is expected across New Brunswick’s construction sector over the next several years, according to a 2025-2034 Looking Forward report by BuildForce Canda, but along with the growth comes growing pains.

“From a retirements perspective, we anticipate that the industry is probably going to lose about 6,500 individuals from the local labour force over the next 10 years and that’s not insignificant and then we anticipate we’re also going to need about 1,900 individuals just to keep pace with existing demands,” said Bill Ferreira, executive director of BuildForce Canada.

“That leaves us with a hiring requirement of about 8,400 individuals over the next 10 years.”

Based on historical recruitment levels, Ferreira anticipates only about 6,700 can be drawn from the local population, leaving the industry to fill the gap elsewhere.

“We’re going to need to draw them in from other industries, we’re going to need to draw them in from other provinces, or we’re going to have to look to immigration to help supplement all the domestic recruitment that we’re doing.”

Overall, the industry is facing a number of challenges. Those include high-demand, tariff uncertainty, supply chain concerns, inflation and the fact that there still isn’t a prompt-payment legislation, according to John-Ryan Morrison, the executive director of the Construction Association of New Brunswick.

However, he says an aging demographic and retiring workers can’t be avoided and needs to be addressed.

“I think it’s 37 per cent of our workforce is over 55 and retiring in the next couple of years, so we lose a lot of the mentorship, we lose a lot of the productivity and the only source of labour force growth in the province is immigration,” he said.

“So for the first time ever, there’s been more people relying more on migrants than we are on local supply.”

Calling it a “generational challenge,” Ferreira says there has been a big focus on recruitment and retention over the last couple of years as the industry looks for ways to address those looking to step down.

“We need to find ways to replace them, particularly in the skilled trades where, again, we’re dealing with perception issues that are impacting recruitment efforts over the last 20 years, we’re also dealing with immigration policies that haven’t been particularly friendly to the construction industry,” he said.

“We need to see policies in place that help support industries like construction but other skilled trades or other industries dependent on the skilled trades to ensure that individuals with skilled trades experience have a pathway into the country because if we don’t we’re going to continue to see our numbers decline.”

Ferreira says there has already been a big focus on diversifying the industry and broadening recruitment efforts. He points to several positives including more women and young people joining the skilled trades in part due to supports from both the federal and provincial governments.

According to the report new registrations in New Brunswick’s 17 largest construction apprenticeship programs increased by 14 per cent year over year in 2023 and program completions saw a 15 per cent increase in 2023.

It also highlights that approximately 3,590 women were employed in the province’s construction industry last year.

Overall, Morrison says the predictions are positive for the industry, but the challenges do need to be addressed for it to be sustainable.

“Each year that that labour crisis deepens, each year that the infrastructure worsens, it’s going to put more and more pressure on the industry,” he said.

“More and more pressure to build the houses. More and more pressure to build everything else, the wrap around infrastructure that comes with every housing announcement.”

Officials say this concern is not unique to New Brunswick or even Atlantic Canada, but that retirement numbers and the challenges they bring are being seen across the country.

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