According to a new report from the B.C. Construction Association says more than 50,000 jobs will need to be created and filled over the next eight years.
Some experts are saying even that number is considered conservative. It is estimated that 32,000 of those vacancies are coming from a retiring workforce by 2021.
Some of the jobs most in demand will include carpenters, boilermakers, contractors, electricians, ironworkers, plumbers and pipefitters.
The report suggests there are not enough people in trade schools at the moment to fill all of these jobs, meaning the industry will have to look out of province and probably out of the country for more than 30,000 workers.
The industry says activity in the province will reach levels seen in the lead up to the 2010 Olympic Games, especially with major projects such as the Evergreen Line in the works.
“The best way to characterize it, we used to talk about the pending labour shortage,” said Manley McLachlan, the president of the B.C. Construction Association. “And today we’re right in the labour shortage. There is a large number of projects that are now in the market that are being built in northern British Columbia, if you look around downtown Vancouver right now, you’ll see there are an awful lot of construction cranes being utilized. It just means that the marketplace has heated up, and the demand is there right now.”
– With files from Ted Chernecki
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