Ontario aims to fast-track skilled worker certification to help ease ‘generational labour shortage’

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Ontario Premier Doug Ford said he will introduce legislation to expedite the process for professionals seeking certification in the province in an attempt to ease the strain on the labour market, especially in the skilled trades.

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The process for a person from another province to obtain certification in order to practice their profession in Ontario usually takes upward of several months to, in extreme cases, a year. The proposed legislation would speed up that time to 30 days or less.

“For skilled workers wanting to move to Ontario, getting the required certification to work in our province takes way too long. … It’s unacceptable when we’re competing for the best of the best talent anywhere in the world, Ford said in a press conference to announced the proposed legislation Friday.

Ford is attempting to tackle an acute labour shortage in the province as many business owners struggle to find qualified workers to fill an unusual amount of empty positions. In December, there were more than 338,000 vacancies in the province — not far off from a peak of 370,000 positions in October 2021 — pushing the vacancy rate to just over five per cent, Statistics Canada reported on Feb. 24. In construction and manufacturing, the number of open roles was 88 per cent and 75 per cent higher, respectively, in the final quarter of 2021 compared to the final quarter of 2019, before the pandemic.

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The proposed legislation would cover more than 35 professions and trades, including engineer technicians, vets, teachers, electricians, plumbers and steamfitters. Ford’s government will also propose recognizing three federally standardized trades, known as Red Seal trades, which means the province would then recognize all 55 Red Seal trades. The added three are two levels of gas fitters and oil and heat technicians.

“We’re facing a generational labour shortage in Ontario and Premier Ford and I want to make Ontario the best place to live, work and raise a family,” Labour Minister Monte McNaughton said in an interview. “We’re building on a number of changes that we’ve already brought forward in our Working for Workers legislation in the fall.”

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Last year, the Progressive Conservatives introduced an omnibus bill of pro-worker policies that ban non-compete clauses for employers, remove discriminatory practices faced by immigrants seeking work in Canada, and implementing a “right-to-disconnect” clause that would instil better work-life balance for workers.

Trade industries have suffered from a shortage of workers since long before the pandemic due to stigma surrounding blue-collar jobs, an aging workforce, and barriers faced by women and immigrants, said Nathan Janzen, senior economist at Royal Bank of Canada. The pandemic exacerbated the situation, and the struggle of employers to find an adequate number of workers could now be impeding economic growth.

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“It limits the amount of output that businesses in the economy can produce,” Janzen said. “So, ultimately, it puts a cap on GDP growth and also, it puts upward pressure on wages,” which could stoke inflationary pressures, he said.

If left to fester, labour shortages in the trades could impact other areas of the economy, such as housing, said Mike Moffatt, an economist at Western University’s Ivey Business School.

As provinces begin the transition to net-zero carbon emissions, the need for skilled tradespeople will become more acute, Moffatt said. For example, retrofitting buildings for greener air condition systems and installing charging stations for electric vehicles require electricians and construction workers.

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A lack of workers could also drive up home prices, he said.

“By not having that skilled pool of labour, it absolutely makes our housing shortages even worse,” Moffat said, adding that it’s one of many barriers to building homes in the province. “If we’re not able to build enough housing … prices will continue to remain high.”

A January report by Bank of Nova Scotia found that Ontario has the biggest housing shortage among all provinces and to reach the national average of 424 units per 1,000 people, homebuilders would need to construct more than 650,000 units. A separate report found that housing prices climbed 30 per cent year-over-year in the province last month and the average home price in the Greater Toronto Area now sits at $1.275 million, seasonally adjusted, the Canadian Real Estate Association reported.

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Moffatt said the high home prices and cost of living could be a deterrent for out-of-province tradespeople to come to Ontario. In January, the consumer price index, a measure of inflation, rose at a faster pace in Ontario than the national rate, climbing to 5.7 per cent from a year before.

Creating more robust childcare supports and boosting the participation of visible minorities and women — both structural problems — take a long time to address, Janzen said. Addressing labour mobility is a good start that could have a more immediate impact than addressing structural issues, he said.

However, there are no inter-provincial deals in the works that would see cooperation between provinces to allow the free flow of workers, McNaughton said. “I will say I’ve raised this issue for the last couple of years with the federal government,” he said. “I’m working closely with … the federal government to help coordinate that conversation, but again, enough with the conversations that’s been going on for decades. It’s time for us to lead and do what we can to knock down these barriers.”

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Both employers and governments, nationally, have a hefty issue to solve. By 2028, more than 700,000 skilled tradespeople are set to retire across the country, a September report by RBC stated. Within five years, the country will face more than 10,000 worker shortages in Red Seal trades — a category of jobs that where provincial and federal standards align — and when provincially regulated trades are included, that figure grows tenfold, RBC reported.

“Pulling labour from another part of the country, the national picture doesn’t change that much,” Janzen said. “You’re just, I guess, borrowing from Peter to pay Paul.”

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