OGCA report focuses on in-demand ICI construction jobs

Ontario Construction News staff writer

An Ontario General Contractors Association (OGCA) report released recently identifies six potential solutions to address labour shortages in the Industrial, Commercial and Institutional (ICI) construction industry.

Building Pathways and Pipelines into ICI Construction targets project managers and site supervisors, two jobs that the OGCA believes will continue to be in high demand.

“Our members have highlighted the need to create a pathway into these long-term, well-paying construction careers,” said Giovanni Cautillo, president of the OGCA. “This report outlines steps we, as an industry, can take to access the untapped talent of under-represented groups such as women, youth and indigenous communities while developing pathways for existing employees to grow into these in-demand leadership roles.”

Between August and October of 2021, the OGCA convened a participatory research, consultation, and codesign process aimed at developing an industry-validated action plan to address the sector-wide shortage of Project Managers and Site Supervisors.

The approach was to take two phases, the first phase was participatory research to better understand the shortage, and its impacts on general contractors. The second phase was the creation of the Workforce Action Group, a 11-member consultation group of OGCA members of all sizes and union affiliations.

The report details the findings and recommendations of that project, with sectoral research supporting those insights. The overall goal of this project was to generate the highest-impact solutions for GCs. In particular, the project focused on:

  • surfacing existing promising practices, priorities, and success criteria from GCs;
  • prototyping those concepts into sector-wide or scaled options;
  • and then using industry insight to tailor those solutions further.

OGCA says that productivity and competitiveness in Ontario’s ICI construction sector are negatively impacted by current labour shortages, stating that general contractors have repeatedly identified a sector-wide workforce shortage of skilled candidates for these leadership roles that are critical to operational success and productivity.

Between August and October of 2021, the OGCA convened a participatory research, consultation, and co-design process to develop an action plan aimed at addressing the sector-wide shortage of project managers and site supervisors. In 2022, the organization plans to seek resources to pilot some, or all, of the solutions outlined in the report for their members.

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