BC NDP's big housing push also paying off with jobs and paycheques
While Ontario lags the national average on residential construction jobs, BC has 36% more people working in the sector
British Columbia is grabbing headlines for setting housing construction records, but the Eby government’s policies are also creating a lot of paycheques for BC construction workers, Statistics Canada data shows.
The BC industry started construction on 87.2 housing units per 100,000 population in March, a rate significantly above every other Canadian province, according to data from the Canadian Mortgage and Housing Corporation.
And that housing push has resulted in 36.2 per cent more residential construction workers in BC than the Canadian average, according to Statistics Canada’s most recent Employment, Payroll and Hours Survey, released late March.
Nearly 170,000 Canadians work in the residential construction sector. Based on its population share, British Columbia would be expected to have a little over 23,000 workers in the sector. But Statistics Canada found almost 32,000 workers actually worked in the sector in 2023.
Ontario residential construction sector 4,000 jobs under national average
BC’s additional 8,500 sector jobs are a sharp contrast to Ontario where a slumping residential construction sector employs fewer workers than the Canadian average.
Compared to BC’s 87.2 housing starts per 100,000 population in March, only started 34.9 housing units per 100,000 population were started in Ontario during the same month.
Not surprisingly, less construction needs fewer construction workers. Based on population, Ontario should have over 66,000 workers in the residential construction sector. But Statistics Canada’s report shows under 62,000 were employed in the sector in 2023, about six per cent fewer than the Canadian average.
BC has about half the number of workers active in the residential construction sector than Ontario despite being about a third of Ontario’s population size.
A BC-sized housing push brought to Ontario would result in thousands of additional paycheques in the construction trades, the CMHC and StatsCan data suggests.