Ontario needs 1.5 million new homes. But the province faces a generational labour shortage

If you ask anyone in Ontario's construction industry, they'll tell you they have a big problem: too much work and not enough workers.

Ontario's government wants to build 1.5 million homes over the next decade, but says it will need 100,000 more workers to carry that out.

"I think this is the greatest economic challenge facing Ontario," said Monte McNaughton, the province's labour minister, in an interview with CBC Toronto.

But it's not just the future we should worry about. The province is currently losing billions of dollars every year and Ontarians are slowly being priced out of their own housing market. 

"We've got an enormous problem that's costing the Ontario economy; I think the estimate is $13 billion a year," said Richard Lyall, president of the Residential Construction Council of Ontario (RESCON), the province's leading residential builders' association. 

"We didn't plan properly for this, systemically. You could see this coming." said Lyall.

Data from RESCON shows 96,000 homes were started last year, well over 50,000 short of the annual targets needed for the province to fulfil its promise. It isn't just affecting the construction of new homes. Contractors are turning down work in every facet of the industry, including restoration, industrial, institutional and commercial, and renovations.

"It's actually shocking. We turn down millions of dollars in work," said Mike Lawrance, president of M-Squared Contracting, a GTA-based firm specializing in home renovations.

So where are all these workers we need so badly?

One part of the problem, many experts say, is that Ontario has not been developing enough new skilled talent through the education pipeline to replace the now-retiring baby boomers.

And even if we were, industry experts say we still need to welcome more foreign labourers skilled in construction trades to make up for the shortfall.

Building is big business in Ontario — the construction industry employs around 600,000 workers and makes up just under eight per cent of Ontario's nearly $1-trillion GDP.

But with the latest job vacancy rate around 6.6 per cent, tens of thousands of skilled construction jobs have nobody to fill them.

"It's the most restrictive I've ever seen in my career," said Lawrance, referring to the province's labour market. He says his company has been advertising for two years with only "one new hire" to show for it.