Enormous Jobs Potential from Energy Transition Investments
Centre for Future Work Director Jim Stanford recently collaborated with the Centre for Civic Governance and the Canadian Building Trades Unions (CBTU) on a new report cataloguing the future job-creation for building trades workers that will result from upcoming investments in renewable energy and energy efficiency measures, in order to meet Canada’s commitment to achieve a net-zero economy by 2050.
The numbers are huge: the report estimates that 6.3 to 9.5 million job years of new construction work will be from now to 2050. This is equivalent to an average of 235,000 to 350,000 ongoing new construction jobs over then next quarter-century – a 20-30% step increase in overall construction employment in Canada.
The report estimated the construction job-creation spurred by three big categories of investment:
- Non-emitting energy production and transmission (including hydro, wind, solar, nuclear, and geothermal).
- Energy-efficient industrial and commercial building construction and retrofits, and construction of district energy systems.
- Sustainable transportation infrastructure (including urban transit, inter-urban high=speed rail, and electric vehicle charging infrastructure).
About half of the new jobs would arise in commercial and industrial building activity, including new construction, deep-energy-saving retrofits, and construction of high-tech district energy systems (which integrate heating and cooling systems with new geothermal, battery, and other technologies to achieve huge gains in energy efficiency).
The job-creation estimates do not include indirect jobs created in the supply chains that feed these investment projects, nor the downstream or induced jobs that would result from additional employment and consumer spending by hundreds of thousands of construction workers. In short, these huge investments will stimulate an unprecedented boom in demand for construction labour.
Sean Strickland, President of the CBTU, concluded these investments are an enormous opportunity for building trades workers:
“This report makes it clear: Canada’s transition to a cleaner economy represents one of the most significant job creation opportunities in our country’s history. Skilled trades workers will be indispensable to delivering the energy infrastructure, retrofits, and clean technology projects that this transition demands. Our members are ready to lead the way by building a more sustainable, resilient, and prosperous Canada for generations to come.”
Please see the full report, Jobs for Today: Canada’s Building Trades and the Net-Zero Transition, by Tyee Bridge and Jim Stanford.
Jim Stanford
Jim Stanford is Economist and Director of the Centre for Future Work, based in Vancouver, Canada. Jim is one of Canada’s best-known economic commentators. He served for over 20 years as Economist and Director of Policy with Unifor, Canada’s largest private-sector trade union.