2011 review of construction in the Collingwood, Creemore and Wasaga Beach area

Review of residential construction in the Collingwood, Creemore and surrounding area for 2011

2011 was volatile year for the construction industry overall. A lot of places in Ontario had almost no new work starting and no new work coming in the future.

The Collingwood area seemed to be bucking the trend in Ontario. A lot of builders were able to stay busy but were not able to accumulate any backlog of work into the future.

The Collingwood market has been flooded with “custom builders” as they call themselves over the last 2 or 3 years. The construction market was not strong enough to feed all the builders that have setup shop in the area. Many want-to-be big home builders found themselves without any work.

The builders with good reputations and track records of quality and fine workmanship stayed busy.

New home building seemed to be carrying the market, with the renovation market also being flooded with company’s looking for work, the leads became few and far between. Additions seemed to be at an all time low in the area with people tearing down older homes and building new ones, instead of adding more space. Almost all work was done for clients from the range of 50 to 70 years old. This is a trend that has existed for the last decade.

The large increase in development fees and building permit fees have had a large effect on the market in the Clearview township area. Clearview Township has now created a have and have not society with their massive increase in the cost of building permits and development fees. It has come to the point where only larger homes are being built in that township because smaller homes have become too expensive for the average person to build. Only the wealthy are now aloud to build a home in the Clearview township area. This of course means that residential construction almost came to a halt. Very little residential construction was started or completed in the Clearview township area in 2011. Most of the work in the area took place in the Collingwood area and into the Wasaga Beach area.

Wasaga Beach seemed to have healthy construction year, with many older cottages being either torn down for new homes or older cottages being completely renovated. Construction can be found on almost every street in the Wasaga Beach area, the closer to the water the more work there seems to be happening.

The Collingwood area seemed to have a reel spike in commercial redevelopment with many new projects springing up on the main street; this helped keep employment higher than the year before.

With the delay of winter conditions this year it seems to have given the construction industry an extra shot in the arm. Less people seemed to be laid off at Christmas time this year compared to previous ones.

Overall it seemed that the year of 2011 was a feast or famine year for a lot of builders and renovators. It seemed to depend on market reputation, with the leaders in the industry staying busy and the rest fighting over what was left over. 2011 seemed to be a better year than 2010, which continues the trend from the 2008 credit crunch that saw the construction market almost completely dry up.

Rob Abbott

Operations Manager

Village Builders Inc.

New hiring trends in the construction industry and where they are leading us

Let's talk about the construction industry and were some of the trends are turning toward. The one I'd like to talk about today is the type of employee's in the industry itself.

When I was young my father always hired older men, who had lots of construction experience. Also as the construction industry was very seasonal, labour's were usually students who were looking for a job for the summer.

Oh how things have changed, first of all the residential construction industry has become a 365 day a year business. So the trend of hiring people to work just for the summer is dying a slow death. I can count on one hand the amount of people I have hired in the last 5 years to work the summer or even part time. The industry evolving past a seasonal business has allowed me to hire long term employee's. That means that when interviewing people for any position in my company I have to take into consideration the length of time I see this person being able to work in my company. So I have changed everything about the way I hire people and I started this with the bottom positions of the company. The bottom position in most construction companies is the “Labourer” position.

In the past when a company got really busy they hired anybody with a strong back and some experience was a plus. These days when I hire for the labourer position I start by hiring the person before I actually need them so that I am not under pressure to hire someone quickly. Every person that sends in an application is given an interview even if they are over qualified for the position. It's a amazing the amount of businesses that will hire a person sight unseen over the phone.

I prepare a standard list of questions to ask people so that every applicant gets asked the same questions. This is one of the big deciding factors in picking some one for my company.

What a lot of people don't understand is that if you hire the wrong person, even someone making the minimum amount in your company, it will cost you somewhere above $10,000.00 before you come to the realization that they don't fit in your company. Training, time lost and starting the hiring process again are the factors that contribute to this figure of $10,000.00 and up. That’s a lot of money for any company and if you make that mistake to many times you'll either be out of a job yourself or out of business altogether.

One of the biggest things that is affecting my hiring of people these days is if they are willing to grow beyond there station of labour in the company. This usually means that they have to go to school for an apprenticeship while they work for me. To raise yourself up in my company you need want to become a crew leader. This is a person that usually starts as a labour or carpenter's helper and goes to school and gets there carpenter's ticket. This means that you just don't want to be a professional carpenter but also a team leader that can organize other people, control costs and make quick decisions that effect profits and schedules.

So all of this goes through my head when I interview people for a simple labourer's job!

Where this has lead me too is the hiring of a younger group of people, who are physically fit, intelligent and are also goal and career oriented. This is a tall order to look for in most people that are applying for a construction labour position. Especially trying to find this in today's young people.

What I do now is never turn down a chance to interview a person even if I have no intention of hiring someone. This has worked in my favour more them once, where I was so impressed with a person that within a couple of months I was able to make room for them by either creating a position in the company or freeing one up.

I also never throw a person resume away, especially if it's sent to me by email. It allows me to email them back when I am hiring and ask if there still interested.

So when speaking of trends, putting these rules and practises into effect have brought me to hiring people who should have went to university or college but weren't able to because of funding, personal choice, family issues or lack of schooling.

It has also brought me young people between the age of 20 and 35 that are intelligent and driven. The one trend that I believe is going to continue to grow in this industry is the hiring of women in the trades for all positions. I find that women that apply for my company tend to be very driven, high energy and extremely hard workers. Changing the all male demographic in our company has had such a positive effect on the people and profits that I don't understand what some old school men have against the hiring of women in the construction industry. I think that this trend has been long overdue in coming and I hope that more companies will jump on the bandwagon.

This doesn't mean that I never hire older people, it means that I hire older people for the more experienced positions in my company, people that already have those special set of skills and do not require training in them. This helps train all the younger people properly and help bring new ideas into the company.

So if you are looking for a job in the construction industry, look for that company that will help you grow into a qualified professional.

Rob Abbott

Operations Manager

Village Builders Inc.

robabbott@villagebuilders.ca