BUILDING KAMLOOPS (Part 8): Labour shortage putting a squeeze on housing projects

Jul 17, 2018 | 5:30 PM

In the eight instalment of Building Kamloops, we switch our focus to the workforce. While builders in Kamloops struggle to find developable land, they’re also struggling to find and retain workers in such a competitive labour market. Chad Klassen takes a look at that issue and what can be done in the future. 

During the course of building a house, there are many trades men and women, and general labourers, that have a hand in the final product. 

But builders, like many other industry people, are competing with one another for those workers. 

“The workers that are out there are getting paid well. There’s a premium on skilled people right now,” says the President of the Canadian Homebuilders’ Association of B.C. Matt McCurrach. “Unfortunately, we don’t see it changing. It takes time to train young workers. Across the country right now, you can’t bring people in because everybody is in the same position.” 

Builders across Kamloops are telling similar stories of the struggles to attract skilled workers to help construct these homes. It’s even harder, they say, to keep them. 

“I’ve been struggling over the last wee while to get people who are hardworking that want to work in this industry. It’s very difficult,” says owner of Right At Home Construction Graham Richardson. “I’ve been through a few different guys, and they might start but then they just don’t really enjoy it. You’ve got to put in your time before you can really know what you’re doing. There’s definitely a shortage. I’ve had ads in the paper. Just put another one in today for more people. It’s a tricky environment. There’s not a lot of people getting into this business.”

Richardson says the boom and bust cycle of the housing industry can make it difficult to keep workers, who he says often go elsewhere to get more stable work and don’t come back. 

“They head out of town. They start going to bigger centres like Kelowna where there might still be work, heading off to Vancouver,” says Richardson. “Getting them to come back seems to be a bit of a challenge for sure. I just lost a guy just yesterday to Nanaimo of all places.”

With a major labour shortage, McCurrach says there are certain housing developments that are being delayed or have to be put on hold altogether. 

“What’s happening now is there are projects on the books that developers and builders want to get up, but they don’t have the manpower to get that done now,” he notes. “You can only build as fast as you can. If you don’t have the people to do the work, unfortunately there are projects that are getting delayed, or even if they’re under construction they’re not going as fast as possible.”

TRU has a key role to play in providing these labourers, and not just in the construction industry. There are currently 1,100 students that graduate from the trades programs, and a portion of those – a total of 16 – specifically come from the Residential Construction program. They are the same students who get a chance to work on the annual Y Dream Home. 

“It gets you two levels of technical training towards your apprenticeship,” says the dean of the School of Trades and Technology Baldev Pooni. “That is a phenomenal experience. That is something that hardly is anywhere to be found. We’ve done that for 28 years now, and so there’s all those graduates out there.” 

Pooni says there are also 40 students, construction craftworkers, that graduate and can also help on the construction of houses. He also notes the new Trades and Technology building, set to open near the end of August, will increase student capacity by 30 per cent.

“We’re going to be putting in a number of new industrial trades. Some trades that will be moving from this building over to the new one. That gives us more capacity to do more programming in here as well,” he says.

Builders hope that it translates into more workers for their projects in the future.