The end of the fourth quarter of last year, construction employers across the country were looking to fill a combined 69,000 jobs, Statistics Canada reports in its latest quarterly look at job vacancies.

That figure is more than double the 32,900 seen at the end of 2019, with the largest increases in vacancies seen among specialty trade contractors (+113.7%; +23,600) and in the construction of buildings subsector (+105.4%; +9,900). By occupation, the industry saw the largest increases among construction trades helpers and labourers (+158.4%; +11,100) and carpenters (+127.2%; +6,100).

The finding is just one of several that point to labour-supply pressures in the industry. In the same report, Statistics Canada finds that payroll in the sector was 3.2 percent higher at the end of 2021 than it was in February 2020 – the last month of pre-COVID-19 data. Meanwhile, industry employment has increased by 95,000 in the past three months, and the total value of building permits issued nationally reached its highest-ever level last year.

Vacancies up in all sectors

Statistics Canada says that job vacancies were up in all 20 sectors compared with pre-COVID levels.

Five sectors accounted for 65% of the overall increase: accommodation and food services (20.0%), health care and social assistance (15.2%), retail trade (11.2%), manufacturing (9.6%) and construction (8.9%).

Employers were seeking to fill 915,500 job vacancies in the fourth quarter of 2021, 80% more than in 2019 and 63.4% more than in 2020.

Job vacancies reached an all-time high in eight sectors in the fourth quarter: health care and social assistance (+6.6% to 126,000); retail trade (+9.1% to 113,500); professional, scientific and technical services (+6.6% to 65,500); administrative and support, waste management and remediation services (+14.3% to 63,000); other services (except public administration) (+7.5% to 37,800); educational services (+6.0% to 21,100); real estate and rental and leasing (+16.3% to 10,500); and utilities (+17.4% to 2,300). The number of job vacancies in public administration also increased, up 4.5% from the third quarter to 13,200 in the fourth quarter of 2021.

Job vacancies decreased or were little changed in the remaining 10 sectors from the third to the fourth quarters of 2021.

From the third to the fourth quarter of 2021, vacancies were little changed in most provinces, with the notable exceptions of Nova Scotia (+11.9% to 20,300) and Manitoba (+5.9% to 25,800).

Compared with two years earlier, there were 80.0% more job vacancies at the national level, with the highest provincial increases reported in Prince Edward Island (+87.1%), Quebec (+87.9%), Alberta (+89.0%) and Saskatchewan (+90.1%).