Canada’s housing crisis has millions struggling to find affordable homes.
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An ongoing labour shortage is stalling construction projects nationwide, driving up costs even further. Two of the most pressing issues of our generation – affordability and housing – have governments across the country scrambling for solutions.
The federal government aims to significantly boost home construction nationwide, with a goal of 3.9 million new homes by 2031. Increasing supply is intended to cool the overly expensive housing market.
However, there is an elephant in the room – who will build all these new homes? As the old proverb goes, “For every hundred men hacking at the branches of a diseased tree, only one stoops to inspect the roots.”
A root of this crisis lies in a fundamental labour shift: people, and especially young people, no longer want to do manual work. The construction industry has been feeling this change acutely, with traditional recruitment yielding little effect.
The Canadian Construction Association estimates the industry will need more than 300,000 new workers over the next decade to keep up with demand. Yet, fewer young people are entering the trades, and a significant number of experienced workers are set to retire. This labour shortage is delaying projects, escalating costs, and potentially putting the quality of work and safety at risk.
To meet demand, we must embrace innovation and technology to reshape how we build and who will build the homes of tomorrow. Without a systemic shift, the gap between demand and supply will only widen. The solution lies in robotics and equipping the next generation of construction workers with the skills to run them.
Will robots take people’s jobs? No. Robots excel at tasks that are dull, dirty, and dangerous – the very jobs that make the industry less appealing to workers. They handle repetitive, physically demanding, or hazardous work, freeing up human workers to focus on more skilled, creative, and higher-value roles.
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By integrating robotics with training and upskilling the next generation of workers, we can bridge the labour gap, speed up construction timelines, and meet the large demand. More importantly, we can inspire the next generation to love building and construction again.
Robotics also offers a significant advantage in enhancing safety on construction sites. Construction remains one of the most dangerous industries, with high rates of workplace injuries from tasks like working at heights or handling heavy materials. While current safety protocols are crucial, they often fall short of eliminating risks, especially when there are increasing demands to build faster.
Here, robotics can take on high-risk tasks, significantly reducing the likelihood of accidents, workplace injuries, and fatalities.
This may sound like a futuristic fantasy, but robotics are already being successfully used on at least one construction site in Canada – protecting workers and delivering housing projects faster and with greater accuracy.
In Gananoque, Ont., 26 stacked townhouse units were designed as long-term rental apartments, featuring a mix of bachelor, one-bedroom, and two-bedroom units, including units that qualify as affordable housing. This innovative project is the first and largest housing project in Canada to use on-site robotics.
Central to this initiative is Val, a construction robot and a valued member of the construction team. Val pours concrete, which reduces manual labour and enhances the precision, speed, and quality of the project while improving employee safety.
But robotics aren’t just for residential construction. Provincial and federal governments have an opportunity to integrate advanced robotics like Val into public infrastructure projects. This approach would not only help address the housing crisis but also drive innovation in how we build roads, bridges, schools, and hospitals, making construction faster and safer, which will in turn lower costs.
Additionally, it will mobilize a new generation of engineers and scientists to develop new made-in-Canada tools and machinery, conduct further research and development, and create entirely new types of jobs in the process.
Robotics are no longer a thing of the future. It’s time for policymakers to integrate cutting-edge technologies into their infrastructure strategies, and for developers to integrate robotics into their construction sites.
By embracing advanced robotics, we can tackle urgent housing and public infrastructure needs and the affordability crisis, while attracting a new generation back to the construction industry.
– Nhung Nguyen is the CEO of Horizon Legacy