Canada can't find workers for $65/hr construction laborer jobs, according to CBC

This story caught my eye over the weekend; Construction labour crunch leaves Canada in need of boosting ranks of homebuilders. Here’s the money quote; “There are tens of thousands of unfilled construction jobs across the country — including up to 20,000 open positions in Ontario alone — that the Labourers' International Union of North America (LIUNA) says it could fill, if only it could find the workers”. So just for fun, I looked up the collective agreement between LIUNA and the Ontario Concrete and Drain Contractors Association. These are the big dogs in the land development industry. Nothing else is gonna happen until sewers are in the ground. If you scroll down to page 37, you will find the current hourly rate for a construction labourer in the greater Toronto area is $44.72 per hour. Plus $9.30 per hour for your pension contribution. Plus a whole lot of other pluses that bring total hourly compensation to $65.59. To be clear, these are labourer jobs. You don’t have to have a fancy five year apprenticeship to join LIUNA. A twenty year old kid in LIUNA is doing better than I was after 25 years in the Ontario Teachers Federation! I find it hard to believe there is a shortage of eager applicants for these jobs. LIUNA are obviously doing a piss-poor job of promoting the wonderful opportunities available. Were I thirty years younger I’d take a crack at it myself.