By Cheryl Jahn

Contruction booming

Construction booming in the North

Oct 31, 2019 | 3:11 PM

PRINCE GEORGE – The BC Construction Association says that industry is the Number One industry in the province. It says more than 236,000 people work in the industry. That represents 9.2% of the workforce, outpacing forestry, mining, agriculture, fishing and manufacturing combined.

“Construction in the North has taken off,” says Scott Bone, CEO of the Northern Regional Construction Association. “There are a number of reasons for that. When you start looking at, first of all, the major projects that are in the North. You look at Site C dam, which has a contribution workforce of about 2,500 people. And then, of course, the introduction of LNG Canada and TransCanada.”

Here’s is BC construction by the numbers: *Number of construction companies: 25,736 (17%^) *Number of Employees: 236,000 (17%^) *Average wage: $61,784 (10%^)

The Association says the shortage of construction trades is decreasing from 30,000 in 2013 to 25,000 in 2015. That number is expected to drop to 7,900 by 2028. And it attributes that to better training.

“Most of our construction programs, are very, very busy,” says Frank Rossi, Dean of Trades at CNC. “We have a brand new Canfor tech building that’s added capacity along with our heavy mechanical trades building. So we’ve added programs for the last four, five years to try to meet the needs of the industry.”

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He says the college also plans to add a Civil Engineering technologists for intake in September 2020.