The Current - What will it take to get more people into the trades?

Episode Date: June 16, 2025

 As the prime minister eyes a number of  “nation-building” projects, the country is in need of tens of thousands more tradespeople to make them happen. We hear from highschool students planning to pursue jobs in the trades, while economists Simon Gaudraeult and Jim Stanford debate whether lowering standards and encouraging greater immigration could get this country the skilled workers it needs

So our podcast House Party was supposed to end right after the election, but we're really not done with the party yet. Yeah, there's way too much to talk about still with the new government and everything. That's right. House Party is now going until the end of June and I am excited to keep nerding out about politics with you guys. I'm Catherine Cullen. I'm Daniel Thibault. And I'm Jason Markossoff. And you can find House Party in the feed for the house wherever you get your podcasts.

This is a CBC Podcast. Hello, I'm Matt Galloway and this is the current podcast. The federal government is all about build baby build these days, promising nation building projects that will stimulate the economy and create housing and jobs. Well to do that, you need people to do the building. In a large barn-like building, the Garibaldi Secondary School in Maple Ridge, British Columbia, a group of grade 11 and 12 students are training for a skilled trade. Programs in plumbing, carpentry, electrical, as well as culinary arts and hairdressing are all fully subscribed. The curriculum is part academic and part practical. And as our producer, Anne Penman, found out, these students are optimistic about their future job prospects.

My name is Brad Dinkler. I'm the trades coordinator for the Maple Ridge-Pitmeadow School District. And we currently run seven programs catering to the all different skilled trades in our school district. This is our level one Carverby program. They are just starting on their mock-ups for their like tiny homes as part of their curriculum. They have a skilled trades VC has a very rigid curriculum in the sense that there are outcomes that have to be accomplished so we need to make sure that we deliver those outcomes. There's Ben. Hey Ben, you ready to go to go? Can you get your mom

to send me an email about you? Okay good. I'm Ben Jack. I'm doing my level one plumbing and I'm 18 and two years ago I just got a two-month summer job as a plumber and I really liked it. I liked it more than I thought I would and yeah that made me want to go into plumbing. I knew I wanted to do a trade. Every one of my siblings is in a trade. Instead of doing grade 12 that wouldn't really be useful to me, you know, just doing it at the high school, I would rather do my level one plumbing so I'd get a head start.

My name's Ella and I made the choice to go into carpentry because I kind of always had an eye for wood shop and detail and stuff like that and I come from a family where trades is like highly recognized. I think there's definitely a high demand for all trades worldwide. I think the trouble being an employee on the side of that is finding a good company. What do you think people out there don't understand about trades and a career in trades? People might think trades people are stupid. I can comment on that too. Yeah, I don't really know what else to say. I think definitely working in the trades,

it is kind of frowned upon because some people who work in the trades, some of them don't have an education. Whereas the youth going into these trades through these programs, we go through our education just as if we were getting a bachelor's degree. What would you say to a young person considering going into a trade? What would you say to them right now? I think that they should do it because I think that the trades,

the trades is a job that's not going to get taken by AI. Where, you know, putting pipes together, that's not going to get taken by AI. I have had girls come up to me in the hall in the bathroom and ask me about my experience in carpentry and what it's like being a woman several girls that are my age at the school were like oh I was gonna apply for carpentry but I was too scared like I would be the only girl and I tell them to do it it's really rewarding it it definitely is a struggle being the only girl and I have had experiences with that

but I, like everyone I've spoken to, I tell them to do it. I hope to get my Class A gas fitter. That would make me a very, very valuable plumber and that would open a lot of doors for me to go work up north and make a lot of money up north. Companies will build teams around you because all the Class A gas fitters now are retiring so there's not many class A's out there now. I'm Brenna, I'm the other trades coordinator for our school district. Our phones ring constantly. Our plumbing cohort for sure is if they want to be working the phone's ringing and there's just such a demand. You know our

students in electrical they know that they're getting scooped up. Everybody in this room came right out of the foundations program and got We have a lot of people that are in the hospital, we have a lot of people that are in the hospital, we have a lot of people that are in the hospital, we have a lot of people that are in the hospital, we have a lot of people that are in the hospital, we have a lot of people that are in the hospital, we have a lot of people that are in the hospital, we have a lot of people that are in the hospital, we have

a lot of people that are in the hospital, we have a lot of people that are in the hospital, we have tools for a much shorter time but the opportunities are endless. Those are students at Garibaldi Secondary School in Maple Ridge British Columbia. As you heard most of the 16 students in each of the school's trades programs can expect to get good jobs when they graduate but the demand for workers far exceeds the supply and that demand is only going to grow as baby boomers retire and the pace of construction picks up. For its part the Kearney government says it is working on the problem. Here's what the Minister of Jobs and Families, Patty Hajdu, told us. We're going to make sure that with provinces

and territories we seize the moment of what we need to do right now in terms of supporting individual businesses, in terms of streamlining recognition of credentials, for example, employees from one province to move to another province. I met with the Labour ministers a week or two ago and there's a commitment to do that work. Simon Godreau is the Chief Economist and Vice President of Research for the Canadian Federation of Independent Business. Close to half of the CFIB's 100,000 members are connected in some way to the construction

industry. Simone Gaudreau is in his Montreal office. Good morning. Good morning. You heard those students talking about why they are in that education stream and what they're hoping to do when they graduate. How would you characterize the demand and the supply of skilled trades in Canada right now? Well, in one word, I would say in balance.

We have great needs from employers when it comes to the skilled trades, whether you are a business in the construction sector, personal services, even transportation, automotive services. All of those areas rely heavily on skilled trades. And last month, the top factor limiting sales or production growth for Canadian small businesses was demand. And the second highest for 40% of businesses was a shortage of skilled labor, which connects directly to the issue of making sure that employers can find the right people and the skilled trades to a large extent.

We've been talking, it feels like, about a shortage in the skilled trades for a long time, but why is that so acute right now, do you think? First of all, and I think in the stories that we've heard at the beginning of the show, we've touched a bit on the fact that skilled trades perhaps haven't been valued by society to the extent that they should be valued.

We have a housing crisis, for example, in this country at the moment. It is directly connected to a challenge in having enough supply of homes and you need people to build those homes and there's too few of them. As a society, we're now waking up perhaps to some of these things, but for a long time we've sort of undervalued the skilled trades and what they can bring to society and that it is easy actually to go into the skilled trades whether it's from our training education system or the different

support programs for employers that's all adding up on top of the mobility the labor mobility across Canada that is not necessarily optimal at the moment. Well I'll ask you about some of the labor mobility across Canada that is not necessarily optimal at the moment. Well, I'll ask you about some of the solutions, but what have you heard from your members about how difficult it is for smaller businesses, which you represent, to compete for that limited pool of skilled trades with some of the bigger employers? What do they have to do to try and get those workers

in their fields? Well, sometimes it's just that the system isn't tailored to small, medium-sized business needs. And we have to remember that 99% of employer businesses in Canada are small or medium-sized, and that they are half of the private sector GDP. One of the programs that is really popular right now in Ontario among big employers has a 40 page application form

and you have to put up a project of $150,000 or more to be able to apply to get some support for your skilled trades hiring. Many businesses, small, medium-sized businesses, won't be able to manage all of that paperwork and come up with a project of that scale. We're talking here about micro businesses. So we have to, that's a concrete example of how we have to tailor the programs and the frameworks to the needs of the small businesses. So what are you looking for from the federal government? Again, there's this whole build baby build. We're going to things. We're gonna do big things. But to do those big things, you need people to do the building. What do you want to hear from the federal government? Well, the government can help in different areas. For example, they can help with playing a bit of

a leadership role in the labor, on the labor mobility side of things. This is so that people can move across the country and that they if they're trained in the field and they have the certifications they can move from jurisdiction to jurisdiction. That's right and making sure that it's recognized by a province if you are certified in one province that the other provinces will recognize that and of of course, it falls in the court of provinces to a large extent, but the federal government can play a bit of a leadership role there,

at least for the employers that are under federal jurisdiction and making sure that it's easier to move from one area of the country to another. But most importantly, I think where they play a large role in the labor sector is with immigration and making sure that whatever we decide in terms of the immigration that we want to have for the next five, 10, 15, 50 years, skilled trades are not neglected because there are acute needs at the moment

and making sure that immigration can be a valuable stream for skilled trade candidates is definitely something that the federal government could encourage. How do you connect that with the streamlining of some of the licensing requirements for skilled trades? That's one of the things that we hear is slowing down perhaps the number of people who are able to, and it's not just labor mobility, but people who are able to be there doing that work. Do you see a connection between that and addressing the crisis that you're describing?

Well, absolutely. I mean, you have certain cases like, for example, Quebec, where you have in the construction industry, where it is so complicated to accept professionals from other provinces or even other countries. It is overly complicated at the moment. There is certainly a way to simplify things, making sure that the different jurisdictions are aligned and that different requirements

are kept at a reasonable level. And perhaps we've gone with a system that was maybe sophisticated, maybe too sophisticated. And we have to go back to the basics and making sure that we have the training, of course, that is necessary to make sure that everything is built in a safe way, but at the same time not overly regulated and overly burdensome and making sure that people can learn one trade and also have a certain mobility between different trades if that's possible and certain provinces have shown that it is possible to do. Is drinking raw milk safe like RFK jr. suggests? Can you reduce a

glucose spike if you eat your food in quote-unquote the right order? I'm registered dietitian Abby Sharp. I host a nutrition myth-busting podcast called Bite Back with Abby Sharp and those are just some of the questions I tackle with qualified experts on my show. On Bite Back, my goal is to help listeners create a pleasurable relationship with food, their body, and themselves, which in my opinion is the fundamental secret to good health. Listen to Bite Back wherever you get your podcasts. What's reasonable, I suppose, is in the eye of the beholder because there are concerns that if you accelerate the pace at which people can do that work, you might lower the standards

that people have set in the past and that people want maintained. Have a listen to Patti Hyde again. She's the Minister of Jobs and Families. What I will also say is that unions are very deliberate in their efforts to make sure that workplaces remain safe. So it is a balance. We want to be able to accelerate people's progress through the skilled trades training and get them to the other side with the certification, Red Steel certification in some cases, because

it does nobody any good to have skilled trades people that aren't operating in a safe way, haven't been trained to the standards, especially in aren't operating in a safe way, haven't been trained to the standards, especially in major projects and on construction workplaces, there will be an expectation those standards are upheld. Can you do both? Can you accelerate that pace, but also ensure that, to her point, the standards are upheld? I think it's possible to the extent that we have certain reports that are showing at the moment, for example, that productivity is

lagging. Everybody knows that, that it's lagging in Canada, but the construction sector, for example, in particular, could greatly improve productivity. So if it is done in the right way, if it's done, I think that's certainly reasonable. Just very briefly, if we don't get this right, we as a nation, what's at stake do you think? We're going to see prices at the moment. Our data at CFIB shows that you have, as of the first quarter of this year in the private sector in Canada, 47,000 vacant jobs in construction. So if the jobs aren't getting filled, that means there's going to be price pressures. And we've just gone through an inflation, a high inflation period. We understand now what that means there's going to be price pressures and we've just gone through an inflation, a

high inflation period. We understand now what that means. We've come to a bit of an acute phase of that labor shortage situation and it's critical that we fix this right now. Simon, thank you very much for this. Thank you. Simon Godreau is the chief economist and vice

president of research for the Canadian Federation of Independent Business. He was in Montreal. Jim Stanford is an economist, director of the Centre for Future Work. He's in our Vancouver studio. Jim, good morning to you. Hello, Matt. 47,000 empty jobs, vacant jobs in construction in this country. How do you go about building if you don't have people to build? Well, first of all, that sounds like a big number, but it's a small proportion of the total construction workforce. There's about a million and a half people working, and in fact, the vacancy rate in construction has fallen a lot in the last three years.

It's about 3% now versus 7% back in 2022 in the immediate post-pandemic days when labor was genuinely scarce. So right now, actually, there's quite a bit of construction labor around. There's an 8% unemployment rate for construction workers. We should be absolutely focusing on more training and attracting more people to the careers, including women and new Canadians, like we heard at the outset from Maple Ridge in BC. But this kind of alarm that there's no workers around and therefore we can't do the job, I think is a bit overstated.

Well, the job is – maybe it's overstated, but the job is different now, right? We are talking about these enormous projects. I guess you need all hands on deck to do that. For sure. How do you see the ability of this country to pull off those big projects? Oh, I think there's lots of boxes that are are gonna have to be checked for those projects to be successful And I don't think that skilled labor per se is the the biggest barrier But it is certainly one piece of the puzzle and you know in the long run construction is a cyclical industry We're kind of in a bit of a down cycle right now

But in the long run we are gonna need more workers and we're going to need better trained workers. You pointed out that the job has changed and it has changed. It's much more complex, knowledge intensive. It requires more training, not less. So what's, I don't know, we can talk more about whether it's going to be cheaper or not, but let's talk about that idea of labour mobility. What's wrong with labour mobility? Is there anything wrong with labor mobility? The idea that people, if they are trained up in one place, could

take those skills somewhere else. Oh, sure. No, that's good for the workers too, because they might have a personal reason. They want to move to a different part of the country or especially in construction. Again, it's cyclical, so you tend to do a project here for a few months and a project somewhere else. So mobility is very important. In construction, Matt, we have an excellent interprovincial labor mobility program. The minister mentioned it is called the Red Seal Program. All provinces are part of it except for Quebec, which does their own thing, but it's a pretty

complimentary system. What it means is as long as you reach a high standard, it has to be a high standard. So everyone in the country has to reach the Red Seal standard and write the exam and show that they've got the on-the-job training, then your ticket is valid in any part of the country. We've been doing this for years. It's an excellent program. So again, just kind of waving your arms in the air and saying, the reason I can't hire workers is because of government red tape. In the construction sector, that is not the story. That is not the story at all. This Red Seal program works well and I was very pleased to hear the minister indicate her support for the continuation and indeed expansion of that program.

So where it's more of a problem, I think will be in other regulated professions, you know, some of the professions like lawyers, for example, or in the healthcare sector. That's where again, provincial certification requirements are really one off within each province right now and that's where some streamlining and harmonization might make sense as long as again, you're lifting the standard. You're not in a kind of lowest common denominator situation. Are you genuinely worried about that when it comes to the skilled trades and a streamlining of Are you genuinely worried about that when it comes to the skilled trades and a streamlining of licensing requirements, that that would be a way to – I mean, is there any evidence that that would lower standards if you were able to move people through that process quicker?

Oh, absolutely. No. This is a longstanding tussle, Matt, between employers and skilled trades workers. Employers want less qualification. They want a streamlining. They don't want a three or four-year apprenticeship and journeyman program, they want to send you to a two week micro-credential course. Two weeks, but the unions wouldn't support that, would they? Well, of course not, but the unions don't determine this, it's determined by government policy and we have seen

at different times and places governments that are very susceptible or very attuned to the demands of the business community say, oh yeah, that's a bunch of red tape, we don't need all that training. The risk with a straight up mutual recognition approach to labour mobility is if you say any certification, any qualification in any province is good across the country, you're opening the door big time to that downgrading race to the bottom in standards. You could have a situation where some very, very business friendly government says, okay, anyone who can pick up a hammer is now a carpenter and then lo and behold, they can work anywhere else in Canada. That's what we

absolutely have to prevent. Is there any way to find middle ground here? And I ask particularly, Simone mentioned apprenticeships. The national rate for workers completing apprenticeships is something like 48%. Is there a way to accelerate that which might lead people to stick around longer because apprenticeship is, isn't, doesn't drag on as long? Do you know what I mean? Well, uh, we should focus on, uh, increasing that, uh, success rate, a hundred percent, the completion

rate, and there's lots of ways to do that without watering down the standards. So you can first of all, support people financially so that the apprentices pay more. And that way people can support their family while they're going through the thing. I'm sure that Mr. Godreau is not going to support that strategy.

We can also look at streamlining the EI system so that if you get laid off from one job, you can go back for retraining in a new one without losing your EI. Right now, that's what usually happens and that can be quite a barrier. These are all ways that we can support students to get through the apprenticeship program, but without watering down the standards. Let me ask you, or play one final thing and this is just around immigration. Simone raised this and

we asked the federal minister, Patty Hajduide about the role of immigration in addressing a shortage such as it may be in the skilled trades. Have a listen to this. I think it's a delicate balance right I mean what we want is we want to make sure that we've used every ounce of domestic talent here in Canada and there are a lot of Canadians that with those barriers removed some of them financial, others structural, would want to pursue a career in the trade. We do use foreign talent in certain ways. The number of approved positions in 2024 for the construction sector, for example, represents under 1% of the total construction workforce.

Pete Is immigration part of the answer here? Richard I think the minister is correct to say in a way it's kind of a last resort and I think we've just been through a period where government listened too much to business lobbyists like Mr. Godreau, his own organization was strongly supporting a big expansion in the temporary foreign worker program precisely because it was easier and cheaper for them to get workers that way rather than training them here in Canada. And I think everyone realizes particularly those non-permanent channels for immigration which have been the dominant source of new people arriving was out of line with what was appropriate and in a way it let employers off the hook. If you don't have

someone around, well really you should either train somebody to do the job or you should try paying them more. That's another magic solution to a labour shortage that employers usually run away from. Instead, they turn to the easy way out, which is these temporary migrant labour programs. Absolutely, we're going to have a lot of immigration in Canada. We need it. Hopefully, doing it right, permanent immigration with full settlement and full rights and supports. And I don't think that we should go back to those mistakes that we've just made two or three years ago of viewing it as a cheap, fast solution to a bigger problem that we really need to solve. You heard those students at the beginning who were super enthusiastic about the program. That was amazing.

So how do you get more people, this is, and Simone was talking about this, how do you get more people to understand in 2025 that the skilled trades, you can make a lot of money in the skilled trades, but that it's also important, meaningful work. And to the one student's point, you're not dumb because you entered the skilled trades, you're actually pretty smart that you entered the skilled trades. Including for the money, like you say, it's a very good career. And you know, especially if we do this build out that we're talking about, it is going to be a nonstop source of job opportunities for decades to come. And it can be meaningful work. I mean, think of some of the things we want to do.

We want to build millions of homes. We want to build out renewable energy to try and protect the environment. These are jobs where you can go and make good money, use your skills, and feel great about what you're doing. So I do think there's been a bit of a sort of cultural bias against manual labor or doing work with your hands. Many parents think, I really, really, really want my kid to go to university, and then college or vocational training is considered a bit of a plan B,

and it shouldn't be that way. We should absolutely value it as a necessary and legitimate part of our labor market and support kids and families to jump into it with both feet. Opportunity here to do that, I think. In this moment, if we're going to build, you need, we keep saying this, you need people to do that building and we should value that. And you need to build it right and give them the right skills and quality and protections

and wages to do it right, not do it on the cheap. Jim, good to talk to you as always. Thank you very much. Thank you, Matt. Jim Stanford is an economist and director of the Center for Future Work Use in our Vancouver studio. You've been listening to The Current Podcast. My name is Matt Galloway.

Thanks for listening. I'll talk to you soon. For more CBC podcasts, go to cbc.ca slash podcasts.