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By Maureen McCall
Globally, companies have been living with the reality that COVID-19 changed the labour market dramatically. After lockdowns caused the worst economic downturn since the Great Depression, employers across the United States, the United Kingdom, Canada, Australia, and the European Union have been struggling and competing to find workers.
Global advisories like Deloitte and McKinsey have been tracking the lingering worker shortages with McKinsey reporting in 2024 that the shortages may be more long-lasting than expected.
“Labor markets in advanced economies today are among the tightest in two decades, not merely a pandemic-induced blip but rather a long-term trend that may continue as workforces age.”
The reality emerges that global industries, including the Canadian energy industry, have not been anticipating and attracting the newer generations of workers that are critical to replace the pending retirement of their most experienced workers. So how can the Canadian energy industry address the challenge of the resulting labour shortages?
In April this year, Reuters reported that annual shutdown/turnaround maintenance on Canada’s oil sands plants was forecast “to cause no more disruption than usual this year” while noting that “trade union officials are warning of a labour crunch during Alberta’s 2025 turnaround season as construction takes off on two new industrial projects”. In addition, as more than 25% of Canada’s skilled labour workforce retires, fewer younger workers are choosing careers in trades, with many preferring high-tech jobs instead.
At the Canadian Institute Shutdowns-Turnarounds Superconference last week in Calgary, a panel of leaders across several trade associations and companies assembled to discuss strategies to overcome skilled labour challenges.
Paul De Jong, President Progressive Contractors Association of Canada, Terry Parker, Executive Director of the Building Trades of Alberta, Shandra Linder, President of the Association of Maintenance Contractors of Canada, Shauna Holmes, President of Canadian Women in Energy and Sr. Commercial Director, Willscot participated in the panel moderated by Deloris Rushton, Vice President of Human Resources and Marketing, Flint Corp.
The discussion tied part of the reason for the diminishing pool of trades workers to a perception in developed countries of trades jobs as being “lesser than” or less desirable than other professions such as doctors lawyers and academics. The perception didn’t seem entirely due to the levels of compensation but more due to a tendency in schools to almost denigrate careers and training in trades. Panelists agreed that work to explore opportunities to improve recognition and respect for trades work in society would go a long way to incenting students to seek training and a career in the trades. Terry Parker suggested an approach that is employed in Germany could be effective.
“We saw the difference in the way that people were respected in the trades in Europe- especially in Germany- with the parity of esteem in how a doctor was treating a construction or a trades worker, the way everyone would be treated with the same amount of respect. We don’t see that here and we need to be on that same level playing field where teachers are telling the students it is okay to be a construction worker, it’s okay to be a trades person and have that mutual respect. I know it’s going to take years before we get there, but we have to work towards it so that we start seeing more people coming into the trades.”
Paul Dejong spoke to the challenge in the construction industry in Canada and internationally, that seeks to find short-term solutions even though it has been known that the labour shortage problem is long-term in nature He proposed changes to Canadian public policy.
“There are two areas of policy change I think need to occur. One of them is with newcomers to Canada. We have a robust immigration pathway system in Canada. If you’re coming to Canada with a trade certificate, there are two problems that you have. One is that to have your trade certificate recognized in Canada-that’s not hard to overcome. The other problem is that there’s a point system. If you’re a dentist, a doctor, an engineer, a scientist, or an accountant immigrating to Canada, there’s a point system that gives you better access to landing yourself in Canada than you do if you’re a person with a trade certificate. And that is just fundamentally wrong. We should have an equal footing when it comes to professional designations, whether they’re an academic designation or one that comes from the trade school.”
Shandra Linder, President of the Association of Maintenance Contractors of Canada spoke to the long-term strategy issue dating back to 2010 when her association and others identified what she termed as a “demographic cliff.”.
“We knew we were having a demographic cliff in 2010,” Linder said. “And we put all these resources into long-term strategies. But when the bottom dropped out of oil in 2015/2016, we dropped those strategies.”
Linder advised that industry foresaw the worker shortage 14 years ago and now in 2024 the discussion has become urgent.
“What do we do in March of 2025?” Linder asked. “We are hitting an epic number of construction activity, incredible numbers of major turnarounds throughout not just Alberta, (but also) Saskatchewan, going out east. So what are we going to do about that? We’ve got four months. Some of these folks are already in the preplanning and pre-work stages. So where are the people coming from?”
Linder had a few solutions that could be implemented immediately. She suggested revising some work plans to get some of the bare minimum done. She suggested that understanding that a project is not going to get 3500 people for 45 days in April of 2025, or September of 2025, or April of 2026 can enable a company to focus on setting reasonable expectations if they can only get 70% of the workforce required. Can they elongate or remove some work scopes? She suggested this approach would be better by planning for the fact that you’re not going to get as many workers and scrutinizing the workers you are choosing.
“How did we plan the work in general? As we looked at that package, that work scope, where’s the criticality of thought in the types of trades I’m using? We know that we have a significant shortage of all the trades but really look at some of our specialized trades that we’re over-utilizing. Not to pick on the Boilermakers, but there’s not a lot of them, and we intend to overutilize them. Not to take the way jurisdictional pieces from them, but, if I only have so many of certain trades, can I make sure I’m using them in the right places? So I think that’s some immediate strategies we need to look at as well as utilizing the trades to regulations, not jurisdiction.”
The issue of the timing of shutdowns and turnarounds is huge in the energy industry, when operators schedule their turnarounds in same time period. As Linder pointed out, in Alberta, in December, January and February, winter is very cold and doesn’t lend itself to shut down and turn around activity. The summer is the time when workers who have just had a peak turnaround and have already worked for 60 days of 12 hour shifts are ready for a break so July and August, is that natural break. Linder advised that there may be an opportunity to tweak the timing of turnarounds. Perhaps it’s not possible to change your company’s turnaround date by weeks but you could move them by days and ease the demand of all the companies requiring their workforce at the same time. She suggested that to manage that feat, companies could manage information about shutdowns and turnarounds by developing an appropriate aggregate form or venue for discussions.
Maureen McCall is an energy professional who writes on issues affecting the energy industry.
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