Ontario’s slowing home construction market is beginning to trigger job losses in the trades. The warning comes from a group representing builders in the province.

Ontario

Ontario is experiencing a slowdown in its housing market, which is having a direct impact on jobs in the construction trades. The Residential Construction Council of Ontario reports that projects are decreasing, leading to layoffs among workers. Unemployment in the province has risen, with a notable loss of jobs, particularly in manufacturing, and Ontario has missed its homebuilding targets for the year.

Industry representatives are urging the government to reduce taxes and fees to stimulate construction, while Premier Doug Ford has called for lower interest rates from the Bank of Canada. Advocates suggest increasing support for innovative building methods, such as mass timber construction, and providing more loans and grants for affordable housing. Despite new provincial policies aimed at encouraging development, experts say better coordination between federal, provincial, and municipal governments is needed to address the housing supply and employment challenges.

How Ontario's slowing housing market is affecting trades jobs

This nine-story mass timber building is coming together on Royal York Road in Etobicoke. Elements of the prefab design are built in Vancouver and shipped to the site for construction. It's innovative work to address the housing crisis at a time when the Residential Construction Council of Ontario warns projects are starting to dry up. We're in the process of laying off thousands of people right now. That group says it's beginning to see the impact of the province's stalled housing starts and layoffs amongst the trades are taking hold. A year from now, give or take, those people that are working on all those high-rise projects that are getting finished are going to be unemployed, which is terrible. It's a warning that comes as Ontario grapples with both rising unemployment and slowing home construction. Unemployment across the province has jumped to 7.8%. Ontario lost 38,000 jobs between April and June, mostly in manufacturing. And the province has missed its goal of building 125,000 new homes, hitting about 75% of that target in 2024. Builders are urging Ontario to cut taxes and fees it charges, including HST for first-time homebuyers. But Premier Doug Ford says his government needs Canada's central bank to cut borrowing costs. The Bank of Canada, they have to lower the interest rates. And, you know, they can't just keep saying no, no, no, no. There's no reason we can't build one of these factories. This housing advocate says the province should take note of the development on Royal York Road and emulate it widely. More mass timber builds could spark housing construction and also draw a home prefabricator to Ontario, creating jobs. We grow the lumber here, we harvest the lumber here, we make the panels here, we make the steel here, we recycle the steel here, and it becomes the kind of housing that you're seeing behind me. He'd also like to see the government increase loans and grants to help get shovels in the ground. We actually need to see the province of Ontario putting their hands in their pockets and matching the kind of capital grants to affordable housing development and to rental housing development. This expert says the federal government, province and municipalities aren't aligned on housing solutions, making it hard to tackle the supply problem. Let's have a big initiative to help subsidize labour as well and build that pipeline back up before we start losing our labour talent. Ontario's introduced a number of new policies designed to spur home construction in recent months. That includes deferral of development charges for builders and loosening zoning rules around transit stations. All of this as it struggles to stay on track and hit that target of building 1.5 million homes by 2031. Sean Jeffords, CBC News, Toronto.

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