Its almost like they should just remove migration restrictions and allow people to move freely instead of politicians playing politics to get the votes of stupid old people.
It’s not like you can just grab a certified plumber from Keyna and they can start here in Canada the next day. There’s a ton of location specific information required to be a plumber. Plumbers for example are licensed provincially here, you can’t even just move from Ontario to BC and start the next day. You require re-certification which takes a lot of time and costs money. That’s assuming their english is good enough to even take the recertification classes and apprenticeship.
Compared to a programmer, who has zero requirement to re-train, it’s more difficult.
But isn’t an awful lot of construction work have a foundation of (relatively) unskilled labor? I mean, you don’t just magically learn how to plumb, you apprentice for it.
From my own anecdotal experience in a high immigration and rapidly expanding urban area in the US, lots of unskilled workers become skilled here. They then start their own roofing, plumbing, waste, whatever subcontracting businesses, which largely employ unskilled immigrant workers. And the cycle continues. But these employers are always hungry for workers.
It also leads to a crazy cycle of exploitative subcontracting and cash based employment, which means bad labor protection and tax avoidance by everybody involved (including large land developers who employ all these little subcontractors). But I digress. And I would hope that Canadian labor protection is a bit more robust, but I’m not sure.
The point I’m trying to make is that unskilled labor is often very very important, and has historically been at the helm of large entrepreneurial classes, at least in North America and Europe. I’m not so sure about how this works in Asian economies, and I think this doesn’t hold true in places like the Middle East where labor rights are absolutely atrocious.
Immigrants are under-represented in the building trades. Although immigrants make up 23 per cent of the Canadian labour market, they comprise only about 18 per cent of workers in the construction industry.
If we’re prioritizing these skills, it doesn’t seem to be reflected in the labour market.
How do you know, though? To say so shouldn’t we compare that statistic before/after the addition of immigration programs for trades? Also, the more useful statistic should be the absolute numbers of workers, no? Otherwise you’ll might obfuscate the fact that immigration program is working with other concurrent effects (like getting more Canadian trades-people workers as well via immigration from other provinces or investing in more trades-oriented education and career befits etc)
I’ve been feeling the housing crisis for the past few years, and I’ve been listening to podcasts and reading articles about the headwinds construction is facing. Canada has an aging, shrinking construction sector. There aren’t enough skilled or unskilled labourers to keep up with demand.
The consensus is that trend will continue. I haven’t heard commentators say that immigration is revitalizing the sector. I haven’t heard anything about significant policy changes that will attract out prioritize immigrant construction workers.
The closest was an announcement about a path to citizenship for people working construction illegally. But that only applies to people who are already here, so I don’t think it really counts.
There was a pre-budget announcement a week or two ago saying that the feds would be jiggling the admission criteria to attract construction workers. I hope it works. It makes sense to try something new.
Do any of those sources you’ve been following call out that there are empty homes owned by investors and other types of landlords because it’s cheaper to let it sit empty than lower rent? There are no homeless families waiting for housing to be built?
Our housing crisis is artificial because Canada turned real estate into a retirement plan
Shame we never considered bringing in construction workers as we process over a million new immigrants a year.
Its almost like they should just remove migration restrictions and allow people to move freely instead of politicians playing politics to get the votes of stupid old people.
I agree. Nation states shouldn’t exist, along side their imaginary borders.
It’s not like you can just grab a certified plumber from Keyna and they can start here in Canada the next day. There’s a ton of location specific information required to be a plumber. Plumbers for example are licensed provincially here, you can’t even just move from Ontario to BC and start the next day. You require re-certification which takes a lot of time and costs money. That’s assuming their english is good enough to even take the recertification classes and apprenticeship.
Compared to a programmer, who has zero requirement to re-train, it’s more difficult.
What makes you think we’re not? IRCC’s ranking system has a preference for trades-people over unskilled labour.
But isn’t an awful lot of construction work have a foundation of (relatively) unskilled labor? I mean, you don’t just magically learn how to plumb, you apprentice for it.
From my own anecdotal experience in a high immigration and rapidly expanding urban area in the US, lots of unskilled workers become skilled here. They then start their own roofing, plumbing, waste, whatever subcontracting businesses, which largely employ unskilled immigrant workers. And the cycle continues. But these employers are always hungry for workers.
It also leads to a crazy cycle of exploitative subcontracting and cash based employment, which means bad labor protection and tax avoidance by everybody involved (including large land developers who employ all these little subcontractors). But I digress. And I would hope that Canadian labor protection is a bit more robust, but I’m not sure.
The point I’m trying to make is that unskilled labor is often very very important, and has historically been at the helm of large entrepreneurial classes, at least in North America and Europe. I’m not so sure about how this works in Asian economies, and I think this doesn’t hold true in places like the Middle East where labor rights are absolutely atrocious.
sauce
If we’re prioritizing these skills, it doesn’t seem to be reflected in the labour market.
How do you know, though? To say so shouldn’t we compare that statistic before/after the addition of immigration programs for trades? Also, the more useful statistic should be the absolute numbers of workers, no? Otherwise you’ll might obfuscate the fact that immigration program is working with other concurrent effects (like getting more Canadian trades-people workers as well via immigration from other provinces or investing in more trades-oriented education and career befits etc)
I’ve been feeling the housing crisis for the past few years, and I’ve been listening to podcasts and reading articles about the headwinds construction is facing. Canada has an aging, shrinking construction sector. There aren’t enough skilled or unskilled labourers to keep up with demand.
The consensus is that trend will continue. I haven’t heard commentators say that immigration is revitalizing the sector. I haven’t heard anything about significant policy changes that will attract out prioritize immigrant construction workers.
The closest was an announcement about a path to citizenship for people working construction illegally. But that only applies to people who are already here, so I don’t think it really counts.
There was a pre-budget announcement a week or two ago saying that the feds would be jiggling the admission criteria to attract construction workers. I hope it works. It makes sense to try something new.
Do any of those sources you’ve been following call out that there are empty homes owned by investors and other types of landlords because it’s cheaper to let it sit empty than lower rent? There are no homeless families waiting for housing to be built?
Our housing crisis is artificial because Canada turned real estate into a retirement plan