Need for tradespeople just as high as demand for housing in Thompson-Okanagan
The demand for skilled tradespeople in the Thompson-Okanagan region is growing but not due to a lack of interest from young people.
The need for housing construction in the region is skyrocketing and according to the trades program administrator for Okanagan College, Brent Moffat, there are people who want to learn the skills required to meet that need.
“My enrolment numbers are almost at 100 per cent all the time,” he said. “I think there's a lot of people wanting to go into the trades, but there's not necessarily enough trade courses right now for people to enter into them.”
People are filling up courses for every trade from alarm technicians to carpenters and plumbers, and beyond but the need for new construction is growing faster than the workforce.
Job postings for trades, transport and equipment operators increased by more than 65 per cent in the Central Okanagan this year compared to 2023, according to data released by the Regional District of Central Okanagan.
The Thompson-Okanagan region will have 6,710 skilled trade job openings by 2033, according to the BC Labour Report for 2023.
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Moffat said people are moving to places that have a lower cost of living than major metropolitan centres in the Lower Mainland which is causing the spike in demand for new housing construction.
“So there's an overwhelming demand for housing. If you compound that with where people want to live, like people want to live on Vancouver Island, people want to live in the Okanagan, people want to live in the Kootenays because this is where they choose to retire or they choose to move with young families,” Moffat said.
Housing starts increased by roughly 53 per cent in the Central Okanagan. By June 2023 there were 1,765 housing starts, and in June 2024 there were 2,714, according to the regional district’s data.
“The housing starts and the rentals aren't going to slow down anytime soon,” Moffat said.
Nearly all of these housing starts, 94 per cent of them, have been multi-family buildings rather than single family homes.
Cassidy deVeer, the executive officer for the Canadian Home Builders’ Association of Central Okanagan, said efforts to bring in more skilled labour from outside the country would help the problem.
“There's a lot of people that are new in the industry, they’re learning the industry we're trying to scale up and so any more immigration that opens up to allow a higher level of skilled trades is something that we've been advocating to the federal government for,” deVeer said.
Moffat said he’s optimistic about the region’s ability to start meeting this demand through education.
“We'll solve it. Industry will work with education institutions like Okanagan College, and we'll work with school districts,” he said.
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Okanagan College has a program where high school students can come to its trades campus and spend three months trying out each trade to see which one interests them the most in an effort to encourage kids to consider a career in the trades.
The Independent Contractors and Businesses Association in BC released data showing that companies in the Interior are expecting more work but are not able to find enough workers.
In 2024 in the B.C. Interior, 42 per cent of businesses expect more work, and 83 per cent of businesses say they can’t find enough workers.
Moffat said one of the challenging aspects of training new tradespeople to fill these jobs is making courses available in the communities where people already live and work.
“If you work as a carpenter in Salmon Arm, it's really difficult to give up a rental (home) so that you have to go to school for two months,” he said.
Tradespeople who are looking to advance in a trade they already work in can struggle to get time off in order to study because they are too busy working.
“With industry they're like, holy smokes, we're just too busy. We can't afford to give folks up,” Moffat said.
Moffat said trade students have so much potential to earn a good living while having a good work-life balance.
“I don't think they understand how much money tradespeople can make. To hire an electrician in Salmon Arm, it's $125 an hour. Hire a plumber in Salmon Arm, it's $130 an hour,” he said. “It's Monday to Friday. It's not like, say, a care aide or anything in healthcare where you have to work evenings and weekends.”
He said since the demand is so high his graduates are getting jobs in under a week.
“They graduated on a Thursday and they all had a job on the following Monday,” he said. “Everybody cares about trades when their kitchen sink is clogged and you can't use your dishwasher. Nothing functions without tradespeople.”
There are also more women enrolling in the college’s trade programs.
“The technology is just exponentially increasing for trades. I've got a lot of young women now interested in trades. They might be alarm techs, they might be elevator techs, they might be electricians, but it's clean work. Generally, you're not outside. It's very technical work,” he said.
Click here to find out about Okanagan College’s trade programs.
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