this post was submitted on 10 Apr 2024
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RBC urges Canada to prioritize construction skills in immigrants to tackle housing crisis (financialpost.com)
submitted 10 months ago by [email protected] to c/canada
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[–] bionicjoey 29 points 10 months ago (3 children)

Incredibly stupid, but I'd expect nothing less from a big bank that's complicit in the country's economic woes. There's no shortage of people who know how to build homes.

There's a shortage of people who will do it for starvation wages though. And that's what the big banks really don't want.

[–] [email protected] 12 points 10 months ago (1 children)

I'm not certain about your neck of the woods but we were looking at a bathroom reno in BC and the wait lists started at a year out. Now the organizing contractors might have been stiffing the actual labor but the quotes we were getting were quite high.

[–] nik282000 4 points 10 months ago (1 children)

That's a reno not a new build. Renos can charge like crazy because you're a captive audience, unless you move your only option is them and they set the price.

In new construction the faster and cheaper it goes up the more profit they make per unit.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 10 months ago (1 children)

Cool - but whys the wait list so long. If renos are free money spigots why aren't companies lining up to snatch prospective renoers in a shorter time window. I'm not in this industry but your comment makes no sense - there's a severe shortage of renoers in the lower mainland and tens of thousands of households with book valuations that are all north of a million on paper.

[–] kent_eh 3 points 10 months ago

If renos are free money spigots why aren't companies lining up to snatch prospective renoers in a shorter time window

What I found when we were looking for someone to do a kitchen repair/renovation was that most of the contractors didn't want to deal with small jobs.

It wasn't until they heard it was (partially) an insurance job that a few of them became interested.

[–] Nomecks 5 points 10 months ago (1 children)

Alberta had over 200k immigrants last year. There's a huge shortage, not just a shortage of good pay.

[–] Hootz 12 points 10 months ago

And that's mostly because other areas cost to much, it's all just a part of the same problem.

Alberta goes through booms and busts, once population hits a point wages will go down and housing prices will go up

[–] healthetank 1 points 10 months ago

I don't argue with your basic premise (companies pay the cheapest contractor, etc), but it is worth noting that because of those pressures, many experienced people leave the industry, thus creating the lack of workers they are talking about. Reversing that change is slow, even if wages rise, and there is no instant fix. Getting people who have left for another industry to return can be difficult, especially in the case of people selling off tools, etc. where the cost to re-enter is often too high to justify.

Add on to that, developers have no incentive to construct everything at once, thus stalling future growth for their company and over saturating the market, driving down housing prices and their enormous margins.