Northern Ontario contractors primed for 2024 construction season

Northern Ontario contractors lead the province in positivity heading into the 2024 construction year, according to a survey from the Ontario Construction Secretariat.

An abundance of mining and institutional both underway and on the books has 31 per cent of contractors in this region expecting more work. Nine per cent expect less.

Heading into 2024, the business outlook of contractors province-wide cooled slightly from 2023. This year, 26 per cent of respondents expected more business compared to 32 per cent in last year’s survey.

Eastern Ontario contractors reported a large decline in business expectations, with only 21 per cent expecting more business in 2024, compared to 30 per cent last year.

Top concerns in all regions are the availability of skilled labour and the rising costs to source that labour and construction materials.

One in five open-ended responses to the survey cited increasing prices, whether it was for labour, materials, or higher interest rates. After that, material costs (28 per cent), labour costs (27 per cent) and transportation costs (25 per cent) were listed as the top concerns of the year.

Supply chain issues are clearing up and the survey noted a growing interest in innovation and technology to increase productivity and lower costs.

The Ontario Construction Secretariat (OCS) is a joint labour and management policy and research organization comprised of 25 unionized construction trades and their contractor partners  in the industrial, commercial and institutional building sectors.

This year’s annual survey involved phone interviewing 500 contractors between November and January.

In general, more than two-thirds of the contractors surveyed (66 per cent) are feeling positive about the coming year. Among unionized workplaces, that number is stronger at 71 per cent.

“There is a massive project pipeline in Ontario that is fuelling positivity about business prospects,” said Robert Bronk, the Secretariat’s CEO, said in a statement.

“Power generation, transit and health-care facilities are leading the list of projects currently under construction or slated for construction over the next few years in every region of the province.” 

Eighty three per cent of those surveyed feel adopting new technology is important to the future of their business, with 15 per cent having created a budget to invest in new tech.. The most commonly used technologies were Building Information Modelling (44 per cent) and jobsite data collection apps (43 per cent).

Sixty five per cent of survey respondents expect recruiting skilled workers to be more difficult in 2024, with nearly half ((48 per cent) citing the availability of experienced skilled labour as the top concern.

Quite a few contractors said they’re in hiring mode as 34 per cent of respondents expecting their workforce to be larger this year, against eight per cent who expect their workforce to drop.

“Despite a mostly positive outlook for ICI construction in 2024, the rising costs we are all facing remain a concern,” added Bronk. “But it is encouraging that despite this worry, there are still strong expectations for growth and expansion over the coming year, with many contractors implementing new technologies to help create efficiencies and support business success.”