Industrial and institutional activity support job growth despite mixed housing trends
The most recent Labour Force Survey data from Statistics Canada shows growth in both construction employment and its labour force growth. The former increased by 2.0% while the latter added 1.9%. As a result, the industry’s national unemployment rate in August 2025 was unchanged at 4.6% compared with a year ago.
The industry is once again working through its busiest period of the year. Data for the 12-month period ending in June 2025 shows building permit values have increased by 15% – with notable growth in the industrial (+82%) and institutional (+61%) components – while the number of permits issued for the same period increased by less than one percentage point. While the discrepancy between the value and number of permits may be in part due to overall inflation, it also points to the fact that larger-scale projects are in the works.
Housing start activity, meanwhile, is also tracking ahead of last year’s pace at the national level, although some major urban centres – notably the Greater Toronto Area and Metro Vancouver – are seeing starts retreat due to an abundance of supply and rising vacancy rates.
For the 12-month period ending in July 2025, total housing starts increased by 4% nationally, as notable increases in starts for semi-detached (+19%) and apartment (+7%) units more than offset contractions in row-housing (-11%) and single-detached (-2%) units. Notably, apartment starts (which Statistics Canada defines as structures of five storeys or more) for the period of January 2025 to July 2025 are 4% higher compared to the same period in 2024, with substantial increases in activity in Quebec, Alberta and Nova Scotia.
While construction activity is increasing, the industry is finding gains in employment among its youngest working cohorts.
Of the 32,900 employment positions created between August 2024 and August 2025, workers aged 15 to 24 years accounted for an increase of 20,800. Similarly, most of the overall labour force increase of 33,400 workers was attributable to growth of 23,400 workers in the youngest cohort. Gains were particularly notable among young women, where employment grew by 56% (+10,100 workers) and the labour force increased by 39% (+8,100 workers) – compared to gains of 5% (+10,600) and 7% (+15,200) respectively among young males. As a result, the unemployment rate among young women dropped from 14.3% in August 2024 to 3.4% last month.
Employment increases among the core-aged working group, i.e., those aged 25 to 54 years, were more modest at just below 2% (+17,700 workers) over the last 12 months, with employment among core-aged males increasing by 11,300 workers.
A closer look at provincial data finds employment increasing in six provinces over the past 12 months. The largest absolute gain in employment was reported in British Columbia, with an increase of 15,600 workers, or 6.1%, compared to a year ago. Ontario followed with a gain of 11,200 workers (+1.9%).
The increase in employment in British Columbia’s construction sector is being driven by significant growth in institutional construction. While overall permit values to the year ending June 2025 rose by 18.3%, the province’s institutional component saw an increase of nearly 375% over the same period, due in large part to the start of construction work on hospital projects in Kamloops, Burnaby, and Nanaimo.
Ontario’s employment increase, meanwhile, is being driven by a notable increase in industrial building activity, including ongoing work to support several major transit projects in the Greater Toronto Area, and the start of work on various utilities projects.
Quebec, meanwhile, reported the greatest year-over-year employment contraction at -3,000 workers (-0.9%). Alberta (-1,100), New Brunswick (-1,100), and Newfoundland and Labrador (-1,000) reported the only other year-over-year contractions.
Unemployment rates across the provinces ranged from a low of 3.9% in British Columbia to a high of 7.9% in Newfoundland and Labrador. With the exception of Nova Scotia (5.5%), no other province reported an unemployment rate higher than 4.9%.
Construction Key Indicators
