PEOPLE PROBLEMS

Ontario’s auto employment shortage reaches ‘crisis level’

Very few in our industry will be surprised to hear that the skills shortage in automotive trades has reached a “crisis” level, says a new study outlining Ontario’s industry employment data.

The study, titled: The Labour Market for the Automotive Trades in Ontario, commissioned by the Motor Vehicle Retailers of Ontario (MVRO), supported by the Canadian Automobile Dealers Association (CADA) and prepared by MNP LLP, delves into employment and apprenticeship data across compulsory trades. The trades covered include alignment and brakes technician; auto body and collision damage repairer; auto body repairer; automotive electronic accessory technician and automotive service technician.

In Q1 2016, there were 830 job vacancies in these automotive trades. By Q3 2022, there were 4,350 vacancies. That’s a 424 percent increase. In Q1 2023, the latest data from MVRO, there were 3,125 job vacancies.

“Trends in vacancies are consistent with stable or increasing demand for automotive trades,” reads the report.

On average, automotive service technicians and mechanics account for 81 percent of job vacancies; auto body collision repairers and estimators make up the remaining 19 percent of vacancies.

The report also goes into the age distribution of auto body and glass technicians and estimators in Ontario. In 2016, there were 435 workers in this category that were over the age of 65. In 2021, there were 655 auto body and glass techs or estimators aged 65+. Between 2016 and 2021, the number of workers aged younger than 24 years old grew by less than 100 (860 workers aged under 24 in 2016; 935 in 2021). The number of auto body and glass techs/estimators aged between 25 years and 54 years dropped by 440 people between 2016 and 2021.

The report also says apprenticeship registration is declining; there was a 12.7 percent decline in automotive trade apprenticeship registrations between 2016 and 2021. Across all trades, apprenticeship registrations have dropped 20 percent since 2016.

“This study clearly demonstrates we have a crisis on our hands,” Todd Bourgon, MVRO executive director, said in a statement. “This… will also help our members plan and navigate the service side of their business for the coming years.”