The federal government says a $94.5-million investment aimed at improving labour market data could help industries, including housing construction, find the workers they need in eastern Ontario. The funding announced Monday will support 14 organizations across Canada that collect and analyze labour market information, tracking where workers are needed and what skills are in demand. Officials say the goal is to help employers, educators and governments better plan training and hiring as economic pressures, including tariffs, and shifting global trade, reshape parts of the economy. “In order to fuel economic growth, it’s important that we have skilled workers and engaged employers and that we adopt new and modern technologies across all of these industries,” says Patty Hajdu, Minister of Jobs and Families at the announcement in Ottawa. The projects will study workforce trends in sectors such as construction, agriculture and biotechnology, which are expected to face significant labour shortages in the coming years. “We’re expecting, in the tens of thousands of deficit of workers in biotechnology industry by the year 2029,” says Rob Henderson, president of BioTalent Canada. “This kind of information will allow us to know in which subsectors, which regions and which specific skills are going to be most keenly in deficit,Housing demand driving need for workers. In eastern Ontario, demand for workers is already growing in some industries, particularly construction, as governments push to build more homes. Companies like OakWood Design-Build say better workforce data could help attract workers to the sector as projects ramp up. “We’re out of time to build slowly,” says Patricia Liptak-Satov, chief operating officer at OakWood Design-Build and NuBuild. OakWood is proposing a NuBuild manufacturing facility in eastern Ontario, designed to produce modular homes faster in a factory setting before they are assembled on site. The company says projects like that require a large workforce to meet growing housing demand. “We need good workers in our NuBuild super factories to be able to supercharge the homebuilding industry and get these jobs and these modules out to people who need them,” Liptak-Satov says. The federal government says the labour data collected through the program will help industries forecast hiring needs, guide training programs, and adapt to economic pressures tied to tariffs and global trade. Each organization will receive a certain amount of the $94.5-million, based on their needs in their applications.
