British Columbia is grabbing headlines for setting housing construction records, but the Eby government policies are also creating a lot of paycheques for BC construction workers, Statistics Canada data shows.

The BC industry started construction on 87.2 housing units per 100,000 population in March, a rate significantly above every other Canadian province, according to data from the Canadian Mortgage and Housing Corporation.

And that housing push has resulted in 36.2 per cent more residential construction workers in BC than the Canadian average, according to Statistics Canada’s most recent Employment, Payroll and Hours Survey, released late March.

Nearly 170,000 Canadians work in the residential construction sector. Based on its population share, British Columbia would be expected to have a little over 23,000 workers in the sector. But Statistics Canada found almost 32,000 workers actually worked in the sector in 2023.

Sharp contrast with Ontario

BC’s additional 8,500 sector jobs are a sharp contrast to Ontario where a slumping residential construction sector employs fewer workers than the Canadian average.

Compared to BC’s 87.2 housing starts per 100,000 population in March, only started 34.9 housing units per 100,000 population were started in Ontario during the same month.

Not surprisingly, less construction needs fewer construction workers. Based on population, Ontario should have over 66,000 workers in the residential construction sector. But Statistics Canada’s report shows under 62,000 were employed in the sector in 2023, about six per cent fewer than the Canadian average.

BC has about half the number of workers active in the residential construction sector than Ontario despite being about a third of Ontario’s population size.

A BC-sized housing push brought to Ontario would result in thousands of additional paycheques in the construction trades, the CMHC and StatsCan data suggests.

Implication for boosting jobs in other industries

The Eby government’s successful use of policy tools to spur the housing construction industry deserves reflection. If public policy tools can be used to pivot a private industry to achieve public housing construction goals, perhaps broader lessons can be taken about the ability to achieve other goals.

Much of current economic thinking envisions giving no more than policy “nudges” to private sector firms and otherwise relying on a positive investment climate to let the market solves problems. That approach may have exacerbated the Canadian housing crisis by increasing financialization.

Regardless, the BC example seems to be a lot more than a few nudges. The Eby government has worked to align planning policy, tax policy, public ownership, skills training and many other tools of government to reach an outcome – and has been successful. Eby has also had significant success at having municipalities and the federal government align their policies to those of BC.

Whether a similarly muscular approach in other sectors could be effective for job creation and reaching public goals is an important question in a country afflicted with low productivity, weak research and development investment and multi-year trend to lower GDP per capita.