Ontario Construction News staff writer
A Quebec industry report indicates that initiatives to solve potential labour shortages within the construction industry by encouraging young people, women and others to consider construction careers may have a fundamental flaw – upwards of one-third of new construction workers decide to leave the industry within their first five years.
Canadian Press reported that the Commission de la constructuon du quebec determined that the attrition rate is about 35 per cent, and “that number is higher among women.”
The news agency said the report, obtained by Action travail des femmes through an access-to-information request, shows the abandonment rate within five years to be:
- 24 per cent among workers with degrees
- 40 per cent of those without
- 62 per cent among those who worked less than 150 hours the first year
- 48 per cent among those who worked 150 to 499 hours
- 30 per cent among those who worked 500 to 999 hours
- 15 per cent among those who worked 1,000 hours or more
“Lack of work and working conditions were identified as the main reasons for abandoning the industry,” the published report said.
Quebec recently softened rules to encourage more entry into the industry, as more infrastructure projects are planned.
“We should work on measures to retain workers, and not on attracting new workers,” Éric Boisjoly, general manager of the FTQ-Construction union, was quoted as saying. “The workforce is there, and competent, and trained, and present in the industry, but we’re not using it to its maximum.”
The union official said woking conditions need to be improved, and there need to be more work hours. Workers need better insurance and pensions and enough hours to go along with good pay.
The abandonment rate for women is “systematically higher than with men,” the report says — reaching 67 per cent for bricklayers, 62 per cent for carpenters, 60 per cent for roofers, and 64 per cent for interior systems installers.
Women said they left the reason mainly for “personal reasons. Other causes included “health problems or workplace accident” and working conditions
Katia Atif of Action travail des femmes told Canadian Press that, reading the results, “we don’t get the impression that things have evolved much” in the past few years. She said it wasn’t the first study to come to the same result.
The Commission de la construction has made it an objective to increase the proportion of women in the industry. Atif acknowledged those efforts, but said she believes it must go further than awareness and promotion.
“It’s been more than 15 years that the strategy used by the CCQ doesn’t work,” she said. “The unions are more and more open to putting in place coercive measures in hiring and retaining women in the industry. The most hesitant sector remains the management sector.”