March 19, 2008

British Columbia recruiters attract 2,500 Ontario job-seekers

RICHARD GILBERT

staff writer

Representatives of the B.C. construction industry participated in a provincial government recruitment initiative in Ontario late last month, which spread the word about local employment opportunities.

The B.C. Ministry of Economic Development organized a series of job fairs in southern Ontario between Feb. 26 and 29 to help companies in all economic sectors recruit workers.

According to the Ministry, the job fairs attracted a total of 2500 people from Kitchener-Waterloo (250), Windsor (700), Hamilton (450) and Toronto (1100). More than 100 B.C. employers participated in the job fairs and it is estimated these employers had about 20,000 job vacancies.

The firms were seeking a range of potential employees, including youth, recent immigrants, professionals, skilled and entry level labour, early and mid-career managers and project managers.

The government initiative was supported by several representatives of the construction industry in B.C.

“Six people have been put forward so far and there is still interest coming in. If I can place these six people, I am happy,” said Regina Brodersen, British Columbia Construction Association director of human resources.

“Three or four resumés have been given to Paul Mitchell with ISTEP (Immigrant Skilled Training Employment Program). So we have about 10 resumés.”

Brodersen, who attended all the job fairs in Ontario, found that recruiting workers in Ontario can be a difficult undertaking.

“Out in Ontario, there were not a lot of journey people, but there were tons of general construction workers,” she said.

“These young bright lads were looking for apprenticeships, but they were hard to help out because they didn’t know which area they wanted to work in.”

A B.C. roofing contractor said he believes recruiting in Ontario is a difficult, but necessary, undertaking.

“We made four contacts throughout all the job fairs and are still in touch with two people. We have been talking by e-mail. We are still waiting, but by the middle of April they should be arriving,” said Steve Rayner, project manager with Metro Roofing & Sheet Metal Ltd.

“It was pretty difficult looking for people in the trades you are involved in. In Windsor there were a lot of general labourers. Hamilton was probably the best bet. It was a good learning experience.”

Fluor, a global engineering consulting firm with an office in Vancouver is looking to hire 200 engineers, designers, technicians and support staff over the next 18 months.

“I think it’s a good idea. The manufacturing and automotive industries are laying off people, so the timing was right, said Ken Kung, operations manager at Fluor.

The Vancouver office of Fluor does engineering consulting for the mining industry.

We need to build a team of engineers, with support staff. We are looking for engineers, designers, project managers, project engineers and cost estimators,” he said

According to Kung, Flour has received about 150 resumés, which will take some time to go through and make a short list. He has already made contact with around five potential candidates.

“The places we visited were not mining towns, so the people looking for jobs didn’t have the necessary mining experience,” Kung said.

“We did have a few with heavy industry experience. We think we can use them.”

It is still too early to determine the level of success achieved by the B.C. construction industry at the job fairs. But a number of important lessons have already been learned.

“We learned a couple of things from this experience. The main thing was we structured our recruitment program around skilled trades,” said Manley McLachlan, president of the British Columbia Construction Association

“We are looking to recruit skilled trades people. We saw lots of entry-level apprentices, but there were not enough journey trades people.”

The second lesson learned by McLachlan was that it was difficult to recruit journeymen in Ontario, because the construction sector in the province is doing well. Many of the people at the job fair had worked in the automotive industry, but didn’t have accredited construction experience.

Despite these problems, McLachlan said he believes that this was a reasonable exercise for most people.

“We planted the seed in those communities that there are opportunities in B.C.,” he said.

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