According to The Canada Construction Monitor Q2 2024, the construction sector displayed positive sentiments in the year’s second quarter despite the continued skilled labor shortage.
Issued by the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors (RICS) and the Canadian Institute of Quantity Surveyors (CIQS), the report depicted steady growth, with the Construction Activity Index reported at +23, similar to the +24 posted in Q1.
Canada’s infrastructure segment displayed the most substantial positive growth, with 35% of respondents reporting an increase in workload over the first quarter of the year. Under 20% reported increased workload in the private non-residential sector since Q1. At the same time, there was a slight decline in respondents reporting private residential sector growth, but numbers remained positive.
The report also highlights changing attitudes towards credit conditions this quarter. While roughly 25% of respondents in Q1 anticipated credit conditions to ease over the next 12 months, this amount declined from the 30% who did in the most recent Q2 survey.
Q2 twelve-month expectations increased for market variables like infrastructure, headcount, and profit margins. In contrast, net-balance expectations for private residential and private-nonresidential developments lagged behind Q1, though they still showed positive sentiments.
The report detailed the factors respondents see as crucial for continued growth, saying, “A further rise in headcounts is viewed as necessary to deliver the projects envisaged, with the net balance for this metric climbing from +27% to +35%.”
The report also identified factors holding back activity in the construction sector, saying, “Both skills and general labour shortages are the two critical factors identified by respondents as holding back market activity. In each case, around two-thirds of respondents highlighted such scarcities, albeit the Q1 shares (66% for skilled trades and 61% for general labour) are marginally lower than last time.”
Although the cost of materials was another significant factor, with 59% of contributors highlighting the issue, this number is also at its lowest since Q4 of 2020.
