Construction confidence low in Northern Ontario: Poll

Contractors in Northern Ontario are less confident about the year ahead than their colleagues in the Greater Toronto Area, says a new survey by the Ontario Construction Secretariat.

The secretariat hired the polling firm Ipsos Reid to survey 500 contractors across the province that do work in the industrial, commercial or institutional sectors.

The confidence indicator in the North was 53, and the Greater Toronto Area's was 67. Any score over 50 means a higher number of contractors expect to have more work in 2015, than those who expect less work.

In Northern Ontario, 22 per cent of construction firms surveyed said they expected to conduct more business in 2015 compared to the previous year. Sixteen per cent said they expected to conduct less business this year than in 2014.

“I think in the north there's concern about institutional work,” said Katherine Jacobs, the Ontario Construction Secretariat's director of research and operations.

In addition to concerns about institutional work, Jacobs said the mining downturn has also contributed to contractors' relatively low confidence in the North.

“I think the mining sector has cooled off,” she said. “I think there was great expectation for work in those markets a couple of years ago, but that's cooled off.”

The confidence indicator of 53 marked Northern Ontario's lowest level of optimism since the recession in 2009.

The shortage of skilled labour in the North was an issue most contractors in the region raised. According to the Ontario Construction Secretariat's survey, 91 per cent of contractors in the region reported a shortage of skilled workers, compared to 67 per cent in the Greater Toronto Area.

Contractors across the province said they were most in need of carpenters, electricians and plumbers, respectively.