N.B. construction industry labour shortage ‘not just a one-year problem’

The New Brunswick construction industry is looking for solutions to the ongoing labour shortage.

Dozens of construction industry leaders, government officials and employment experts met at a Dieppe hotel Wednesday to discuss the current labour challenges in New Brunswick.

The one-day summit was an opportunity for stakeholders in the construction industry to get together and collaborate on finding ways to attract and retain more skilled workers.

Moncton Northeast Construction Association president Rob Clinch said a shortage of people to fill the opportunities in the industry right now is their biggest problem.

“We have a massive housing shortage. There’s building construction going on to meet that need and we need people to fill the roles on the job site,” said Clinch. “It’s not just a one-year problem. The forecast is for this to be continuing for the next 10 years in our country and in particular our region.”

Saint John Construction Association CEO Arlene Dunn said filling the need for the labour supply with newcomers from other countries is key to finding a solution.

“We know that the immigration file is actually what has driven the province economically into a very, very successful province,” said Dunn. “Absolutely we need to focus on immigration. My only concern around the immigration piece is the fact that governments change policy some times, usually without talking to the stakeholders.”

Dunn said immigration needs to be promoted and once newcomers arrive, they have to be supported in their new communities.

Getting newcomers to come to the province and work on job sites isn’t as easy as it sounds, according to John-Ryan Morrison, executive director of the Construction Association of New Brunswick.

After a presentation on navigating immigrant recruitment in construction, Morrison said one of the industry’s biggest challenges is people need a full-time job offer before they can come to Canada.

“As we know with construction projects, if we receive the offer today, the tender today, it’s 18 months before that person can be boots on the ground and that’s just too late for basically any sized project in the province,” said Morrison. “So it’s about reducing those wait times, finding different ways of getting them permanent job offers or even creating different opportunities to get them in the province sooner.”

Morrison said New Brunswick is facing tough competition from provinces across the country in the search for skilled workers from other countries and industry leaders need to find more innovative pathways to get them here quicker.

“Even though immigrants built this country, even though it’s widely recognized that there’s a housing and labour crisis in our construction industry, the only way New Brunswick is going to build the houses we need to build, build the wraparound infrastructure we need to build, is through immigration,” said Morrison. “So significant changes in terms of recognizing our industry nationally with Immigration Canada.”

Uncertainty with the possibility of U.S. tariffs was also on the mind of leaders at the summit.

“Tariffs, it injects chaos and it injects chaos into our industry,” said Clinch. “I think with chaos comes opportunity. I think we’ve got to collaborate with government, with our developers, with our industry and find solutions to the potential problems that tariffs would bring in our costing and the uncertainty around it.”

Dunn said from her perspective representing the Saint John area, she’s very concerned with the threat of President Donald Trump’s tariffs.

“We do a lot of work with JD Irving, with Irving Oil and obviously they’re big exporters so I think from our perspective we can’t control what Trump is going to do,” said Dunn. “It’s generally something that none of us have any understanding of where he’s going to go next, but what I would say is that we can control how we react and how we act.”

For more New Brunswick news, visit our dedicated provincial page.