Bridging Canada’s construction skills gap

Canada’s construction workforce faces a shortage of at least 85,000 workers by 2033, according to industry body BuildForce Canada.

Like in many countries, the number of those closing in on retirement far outstrips the number of those newly entering the building trade.

But a labour and recruitment company founded by an Englishman with a love of travel is trying to bring people into the sector from around the world, connecting them with Canadian employers and trying to help them earn a decent living.

Matt Roberts, now 43, grew up in Sheffield, South Yorkshire, and trained as a carpenter in his teenage years. At 24, he decided he wanted to see the world.

“I had no real set plan. I just wanted to have experiences, and I knew that with my trade you’re able to travel and go to other places,” he tells CIOB People.

“[You can] pick up work no matter if you speak the language or [not]. I was lucky, in that respect, and realised from a young age that was the case.”

“I didn’t know if it would last three months, three weeks, or 40 years.”

After visiting destinations including Australia, New Zealand, Israel, India, Thailand and Cambodia, he moved to Canada in 2012 to visit a friend “for a few months”.

“I fell in love with the place, the nature, the experience, the people. And then the construction industry just so happened to be booming as well,” he says, his Yorkshire accent still distinct.

Now a Canadian citizen, Roberts’ experiences working and travelling across the globe mean he is aware that some employers can look to take advantage of traders.

On an early job in Canada, he was paid $18 (£9.70) an hour and told that was the standard rate. He subsequently discovered labourers on the same site were on $22 (£11.86) an hour, despite the roles requiring less training and experience.

“It is a downside of the industry, and that’s where we try and tell people to be more vigilant when they’re looking for employers,” he says.

“A reason why [A Few Good Lads is] around today [is] to help people know that they’re going to come to a place where they’re going to be looked after.”

Roberts founded the company in 2018, after a few years working for a construction firm in Vancouver and then deciding to branch out alone.

A Few Good Lads has developed strong relationships with employers and industry bodies, like CIOB Americas, to help place candidates in roles.

With offices in Vancouver, Kelowna, Calgary and Toronto, he sees the business as different from other agencies.

“We’ve got more connections overseas, we’re a fair employer, everybody [we recruit] has the right to work in Canada – we guarantee that to our clients.

“And the social aspect is a huge thing as well, because we understand that a lot of these people are coming here on their own: we teach them some of the history of Canada, we teach them about places to go and visit as tourists,” he says.

Roberts declines to confirm how many people the company finds work for each year, but says it receives more than 5,000 resumes into its two British Columbia offices. It currently has 15 full-time staff across the operation.

Primarily recruiting from overseas, Roberts sees the company as helping to fill the shortages in the Canadian construction industry.

“It’s a big problem in Canada and there’s already a lack of people training people as it is. We need to look overseas,” he says.

“We’ve got to really focus on getting the right talent in and nurturing that talent so that they stay here. That’s what we’ve been doing for the last seven years now.”

Other countries find themselves in similar positions when it comes to current and looming skills shortages in their construction sectors.

A familiar refrain in the UK is that the country needs to train more domestic workers to plug workforce shortages rather than relying on recruitment from abroad.

Is this something that has been put to Roberts about Canada’s worker shortage and the solution he offers?

“I think it’s a different equation from the UK because you’ve got an island full of 70 million people – that’s not even the size of British Columbia.

“We’ve got an absolutely massive landmass here, with only 40 million people. [It is] the second biggest country in the world and growing at a rapid rate, with a hell of a lot of natural resources that are going to be tapped into eventually.”

Roberts says that if recruitment from overseas is not increased now, future workforce shortages are going to become a huge issue.

He adds that the high cost of living in major cities such as Toronto and Vancouver, and the amount of land available to build on, means the potential for expanding the industry is vast.

“We can create new cities and create prosperity. It’s exciting to be here because you’ve got a blank canvas,” he says.

Aside from the wider national issues, Roberts also believes his company offers an unrivalled service for construction companies.

“The companies that we work for should be concentrating on winning projects, pricing and building, and everything else that they do best, and we should be helping to support their workforce and do what we do best,” he says.

He insists that the fact that the company sources overseas labour makes it a more attractive prospect in some respects.

One of the spurs for forming the agency was when Roberts briefly ran his own contracting business and spotted the massive gap in the market for the service.

After one job, he was inundated with enquiries from subcontractors about where he found his workforce.

Recruits from overseas are often eager to work and have undergone police background checks because they have entered the country through approved immigration routes, he points out.

Asked why he decided to call the company A Few Good Lads, Roberts says the film A Few Good Men was an inspiration. That also sets it apart from other companies, whose names tend to be based around the word ‘labour’.

It is also a “tongue-in-cheek” reference to England, and Yorkshire, given that the word ‘lads’ is not used as often in Canada.

According to Roberts, the word does not imply masculinity, as some might think. The company website defines ‘lad’ as “a stable worker, regardless of age and gender”.

Nevertheless, Roberts says, one in four of the people it places into jobs are women, compared with just 5% of Canada’s on-site tradespeople being women.

And what of the future of the agency itself? Roberts says he has big plans, including expanding further across Canada.

“We want to be able to service our clients that are nationwide in all areas that they’re in,” he says.

But plays his cards close to his chest, not wanting to give away specifics at this stage.

Whichever way it goes, it is sure to be in line with what he says are the company’s foundations: “A love and passion for the industry and for Canada as well, that genuinely seeps through everything we do.”

Franziska Soos has just returned home to Austria after spending two years in Canada on a working holiday visa.

The 26-year-old had studied event management and had no construction background, but after arriving in Canada she learnt about A Few Good Lads through a Facebook group.

She repeatedly found work as a general labourer through the company over the two years she spent in the country.

“Some of the construction sites they sent me to were pretty big, with several towers and family homes being built, whereas other jobs were on smaller construction sites with only one or two buildings,” she says.

“I enjoyed the bigger sites the most, as there were always a lot of people from different trades working there and it felt like I could learn the most about the Canadian construction industry there.

“Nevertheless, work on the bigger sites was also more exhausting and usually also brought more responsibility.”

Returning home, Soos has decided to pursue her original goal of event management rather than continuing in construction. But she says she enjoyed the work A Few Good Lads found for her.

“I enjoyed my time at the sites and with the company, but in general I don’t think that the construction and trade life is something I want to pursue,” she tells CIOB People.

All images provided by A Few Good Lads

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