OCS survey reveals key insights into safety, labour and supply chain issues
According to the Ontario Construction Secretariat’s (OCS) annual survey, Ontario construction contractors are feeling confident about their prospects in 2022.
Though the OCS didn’t include any safety questions in their survey this year, the topic of safety was raised by respondents – who mentioned that the pandemic has had a positive impact on construction safety in the way that it has increased focus on health and safety measures.
“Contractors spent a good amount of time figuring out how they could keep construction sites open – especially in 2020,” says Katherine Jacobs, OCS Director of Research. “And so [contractors] implemented measures, that were not necessarily new, and they were more diligent in ensuring measures were respected.”
For example, contractors upped their game around washrooms and washing stations, and did a lot of work on the procurement side to figure out how they could get workers on site at certain times. I think, actually, it’s been a positive outcome for the industry overall.”
Positive outlook
Jacobs says that in the industrial, commercial and institutional (ICI) sector, business continues to be strong. Investments have been up so there has been more growth. Feelings were a bit more uncertain in 2020 and 2021 as contractors were “still uncertain as to how everything was panning out.”
Around 82 per cent of the 500 ICI contractors surveyed said that they have a positive outlook on Ontario’s construction industry.
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Nevertheless, there were still some concerns among those surveyed. Jacobs says that the top concerns this year “by far” was the availability of skilled trades workers, and material costs. There were also concerns about the quality of skilled labour as well, but availability was their “number one concern.”
With supply chain and labour issues a concern, Jacobs says that many contractors increased wages to ensure that they could attract or retain their skilled labour, or potentially promote workers to a higher paid job classification with improved benefits. “That’s generally how we’re dealing with the challenges of getting labour,” she says.
Labour shortage
There have been challenges around hiring and retaining skilled trades workers, notably women. Ontario is a very busy province for construction projects, yet with an aging population a lot of workers are retiring and there is a need to replace those workers as well as attract additional workers because of the increase in demand, says Jacobs.
There are ongoing efforts from the Ministry of Labour, Training and Skills Development to attract and develop talent. These efforts have been around for quite some time, says Jacobs, though she feels like real progress is actually being made now.
“I think the industry is really starting to listen,” she says, and trying to do better to get greater diversity in the trades.
Speaking about women entering the trades, Jacobs say that there are groups that are making real efforts to create the right conditions so that women can come into the trades and be successful. “You can attract people, but they have to feel welcome in the industry, they have to be able to be successful in the industry to be able to stay, and if the conditions aren’t there for that then they come in, but they don’t stay very long.”
