The construction industry has seen its share of decline on both sides of the border resulting from persistent challenges in the market. From high interest rates to rising costs of materials and labour, a slowdown in activity is leading to the loss of thousands of jobs.
In Ontario, a report for the Residential Construction Council of Ontario (RESCON), conducted by the Missing Middle Initiative at the University of Ottawa based on data from Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation (CMHC) and Altus Group, indicates that residential housing starts were down across the Greater Toronto Area and Golden Horseshoe over the first nine months of 2025, compared to the same period over the previous three years.
The report looked at data from 34 municipalities across nine separate metro areas in the regions pertaining to the state of housing sales and construction and the implications of these trends on employment. The data shows that the market trends have resulted in more than 35,000 fewer person-years of employment.
“We are staring into the abyss,” said RESCON president Richard Lyall. “The new home market has tanked. It is a particularly dark time for those who work in residential construction. There have been significant job losses across the board. Projects are being shelved, and this will have a significant trickle-down effect on Ontario’s economy.”
In the United States, according to an Associated Builders and Contractors (ABC) analysis of data released by the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, the construction industry showed losses of 11,000 jobs in December, though on a year-over-year basis, industry employment grew by 14,000 jobs or a rate of 0.2 percent. The biggest hits came to non-residential construction employment, which decreased by 7,800 net positions, non-residential specialty trade, and non-residential building, which lost 8,900 and 1,200 jobs respectively, whereas heavy and civil engineering added 2,300 jobs.
“The construction industry added just 14,000 net new jobs in 2025,” said ABC Chief Economist Anirban Basu. “Excluding the first year of the COVID-19 pandemic, that’s the worst 12-month performance since 2011, when the construction industry was still spiraling from the Great Recession. While the non-residential side of the industry performed significantly better over the past year, even that segment’s momentum has started to wane. Non-residential specialty trade contractors, demand for which led the industry in 2025, posted its worst month in nearly four years, losing 8,900 jobs in December.”
“Despite this dismal performance, the industry’s unemployment rate remains relatively low, down 0.2 percentage points from the same time last year,” said Basu. “This unusual dynamic—decreasing employment but a steady unemployment rate—likely reflects the effects of immigration policy on the industry’s workforce. As a result, average hourly earnings for production and nonsupervisory construction workers were up 4.5 percent on a year-over-year basis in both November and December, a sharp increase from the 3.9 percent increase observed in October. While contractors remain optimistic about hiring over the next six months, according to ABC’s Construction Confidence Index, recent declines in backlog, ongoing declines in construction spending, and December’s job losses suggest it could be a difficult start to 2026 for the industry.”
