“Canada will not be an energy superpower if we don’t have the requisite labour force and have to outsource jobs. Workforce concerns are serious issues,” Lorena Patterson, President of WaterPower Canada says, “and our sector is growing faster than we are producing people to meet those needs.”
Diving into the important details about how the situation is currently looking, Mark Chapeskie is the Vice President of Programmes at Electricity Human Resources Canada (EHRC). His role is to develop comprehensive labour market intelligence and give valuable insights into what’s going on. Data-driven, hard facts are crucial for developing strategies to enable the country to face up to future labour force development and projected shortfalls.
Critical intelligence
EHRC is a national industry association focused on Canada’s electricity sector and with 60% of total generation, water power is a very big part of that. EHRC works to forge partnerships and deliver critical business intelligence to enable industry upskilling and inspire future workers to build a low carbon future. “And we have a great partnership with WaterPower Canada,” Chapeskie comments. EHRC’s members and partners are the employers, unions and post-secondary institutions that make up the broader industry, and it works closely with government to solve some of the bigger challenges.
“So we need to understand who does what, and do we have enough of those people to keep the lights on 24/7, 365,” Chapeskie says. “It really is a partnership with the entire industry to solve some of these big problems, especially as we forecast into the future.”
Indeed, the long-term outlook, assuming employment and retirement patterns over the next five years remain unchanged, is that by 2050 the Canadian power industry will need an additional 130,000 workers, of which 36,000 is set to accumulate between 2028 and 2035. Currently the Canadian electricity industry has over 127,00 employees, with 34 core occupations making up the sector. As Chapeskie explains, 43% of these are occupations such as human resources, finance, accounting or – as he calls them – corporate services professionals.
And then there’s the core electricity occupations which account for 57% of the workforce. These include:
• Skilled trades – 27% (such as electrical mechanics, power line technicians, welders etc).
• Engineers, technicians and technologists – 15%.
• Managers and supervisors – 9% (who often come up from skilled trades).
• Information and communications technology (ICT) – 6%.
Speaking a little more about ICT, Chapeskie explains that these roles require unique competency or skill sets to work in the electricity industry.
“When we look at the interplay between information technology and the operational technology requirements of the industry, we really see where some of those competencies come out,” he says. “There are very unique aspects to the electricity industry. The hardware we work with makes information technology a little more difficult to work with as well.”
EHRC has also previously carried out research into the role of AI in the industry on a per occupation basis. It looked at exposure of the role to AI and then how AI is complementary to that role. The research highlighted lower to mid-level exposure across various roles with the ability to leverage AI to maximise productivity and efficiency. But, as Chapeskie adds: “We don’t typically see a lot of downsizing in our future as a result of AI”.
A cautionary tale
At the root of the workforce challenges currently facing the Canadian power sector, is an ageing workforce.
“I think this is a bit of a cautionary tale for us,” Chapeskie warns. When looking at age distribution across the industry, the electricity sector’s workforce is on average older than that of the overall economy. For every young employee (aged 15-24 years old) there are more than three mature employees (55+ and heading towards retirement). The issue is particularly acute among managers and supervisors, as well as ICT workers.
Effectively this means there is 5% of the electricity sector in the 15-24 age group, ie people coming into industry. There’s 78% aged between 25-54 years, and 17% post 55.
“This means we have a 3:1 ratio of people retiring to young people coming in. If we look specifically at engineers, it’s a 2:1 ratio. But then if we look at ICT professionals, this is the one that’s a little scarier. It’s about 10:1,” Chapeskie says. “So the total number of people looking to exit versus entering the industry is very, very high. We have a lot of work to do on the front end of recruitment to ensure we are filling the seats of the earlier years, so they’re not left empty as people continue to exit.”
According to Chapeskie, the Covid 19 pandemic had a bit of a delayed effect on industry losses and stalled retirements. People who would have retired waited but then within about 18 months to two years after Covid, they started to leave. It’s a situation that employers across the industry have witnessed consistently.
Female workforce
Looking more closely at workers within the Canadian industry, women only make up 27% of the workforce. This is at a time when estimates suggest the Canadian labour market as a whole is very close to gender parity, with 48% being women.
“Our 27% is skewed towards corporate services professionals. We’re under-represented in engineering and the skilled trades in particular. So we have a lot of work to do in gender representation in the industry,” Chapeskie admits. “Ten years ago we were at 25% of women in the electricity industry. So at this rate it will be 115 years before we achieve gender parity. We have our work cut out for us there.”
“It’s quite disappointing to see the percentage of women hasn’t really changed, particularly in those engineering roles,” WaterPower Canada’s President Lorena Patterson adds. “We’re hearing from universities that there are more women going into that field, but it seems as though it hasn’t really translated into more engineers on the other end.”
Although 30% of students on engineering programmes in Canada are women, Chapeskie says this is “both a good news and bad news story”.
“I would like to see us further long on that particular journey from an education system perspective,” he says.. “At the end of the day employers can’t move any faster than the education system will allow from total participation in the sector. And if only 30% of our new recruits are women, we will never be bigger than 30% in our industry.”
Referring to this as “a talent lock”, Chapeskie admits that “we’re effectively stuck” but employers can do more work though.
“It’s called Leadershift and looking at why women don’t enter, don’t advance or don’t stay at companies. Unfortunately I have to say there is still a ‘bro culture’ in some organisations where this attitude of boys will be boys and that sort of thing still exists – particularly on the front lines. Sometimes there’s disparity between what’s occurring in the proverbial locker room and the corporate head office. That needs to be addressed,” Chapeskie says “but unfortunately it’s still a challenge.”
Looking at the skilled trades, which is only at 7% of female participation, Chapeskie admits there is even more work to do on the participation perspective here. “In some provinces there is a single woman power line technician in the entire province. That can’t be something that we continue,” he says.
Talent supply under strain
Continuing to look at the composition of the Canadian electricity industry’s work force, indigenous peoples account for 5%, which is labour market parity.
“In our industry indigenous peoples are disproportionately skewed into skilled trade roles,” Chapeskie explained. “There are various reasons for this such as historical barriers to indigenous participation in post-secondary education. Once again, we have more work to do here too.”
Radicalised groups account for 22% of the workforce, persons with disabilities are 1% (reduced from 3% a couple of years ago), and gender diverse people 2%. And at 19%, a large section of the workforce comprises internationally trained workers, with 61% of these coming into the industry as engineers.
“Immigration is one of our biggest single areas of talent supply in Canada,” Chapeskie states. “From 2023-4 we saw significant immigration in this country. It changed significantly into 2025 and heading into 2026 due to policy changes and restrictions on the total numbers of immigrants permitted to enter. And this includes foreign students studying in our post-secondary intuitions.”
Such immigration changes and policy shifts are having a two-fold effect, according to Chapeskie. “We’re not going to experience it right away,” he says, “but it will be an ongoing pressurisation over time. On the one hand we aren’t bringing in as many people with the skills that we need to work in the electricity industry, let alone all industries in Canada.
“And then there’s the ‘dirty little secret’ of Canadian post-secondary education,” he comments, going on to explain that foreign students were actually backstopping funding shortfalls in the education system. “So by reducing the total headcount of foreign students, we’re putting at jeopardy a number of our programmes. Only time will tell how that will play out,” he says, adding that programmes are already being cut across the board. “Core occupations have so far been untouched in our industry but there are some subsidiary roles we rely on where we have seen some programmes disappear or reduce,” he warns.
“The concern I have regarding foreign trained workers is that many of these people are probably coming in to do a specific thing, then going home or going to another market again. So we lose those people,” Patterson says. “Do we know if universities are looking at strategies to bring more Canadians or permanent residents into their programmes?” she asks Chapeskie.
“It costs a certain amount to run an engineering programme, and foreign students provide for any shortfall because they typically pay two to four times what domestic students pay for same course,” he replies. “So when a lot of foreign students disappear, universities ask can they continue to run these programmes necessary for the Canadian economy, and if they can, how do they fund them?”
These are the kinds of questions that universities are currently grappling with on the engineering side. And the same is true with colleges on the technician, technologist and skilled trade side, Chapeskie adds.
“The truth is funding doesn’t match the requirement to get to where we need to go as a country. And that’s just maintaining status quo and not talking about growth yet,” he says.
Patterson believes there will be a time when some sort of private sector funding has to augment these gaps. “It’s a challenge that needs to be addressed and certainly impacts our companies and members and those that support them directly,” she says.
Economic imperative
Looking at other routes into the industry, Chapeskie mentions intersectoral mobility where workers come from oil, gas or construction, as well as mining and manufacturing, facilitated by shared trades or competencies within these industries. And another main talent supply is school leavers. However, Chapeskie believes there is so much more to do to attract students into hydro as a career.
“We did a study few years ago called generation impact, looking at youth’s perception of the electricity industry. Less than one in ten were considering electricity and waterpower. It wasn’t top of their minds,” he says. “It wasn’t until we paired our industry with climate change language and addressing it by being on the front line, coming to the table with climate solutions, that you really started to see a conversion in people’s interest in the industry.”
Chapeski says although they rely on it, very few people actually think about waterpower in Canada. In one way, it’s a good thing hydropower isn’t top of people’s mind, he laughs, because it shows the industry does such a great job of keeping the power on.
“The more we can collectively bang that drum and share that message though, the more interest we will see in our sector as a sector of choice,” he urges. “The truth is people just don’t think about hydro as a career opportunity, but we need to do a better job of attracting a much more diverse candidate pool across the board.”
Patterson agrees. Equity, inclusion and diversity initiatives are not just the right thing to do, they’re also an economic imperative.
“We need everybody to come into the sector, given some of these gaps we’re seeing,” she says.
Chapeskie also spoke about how studies have shown a dramatic increase in the total number of outsourced hours across the industry over the past five years, going from an estimated 10% to 30%.
“It would be interesting to see what they were outsourcing for,” he says. “My hypothesis is where you can’t fill a function internally, you outsource for it. So if companies can’t meet an engineering need they outsource. Or can’t meet a specific building need they outsource for it. The point is what’s driving that could potentially be some of the workforce issues we’re talking about here.”
Why work here?
Aware that the sector needs to attract more workers, Chapeskie considers why people would want to work in the power industry anyhow.
Overall, he says, it is still comparably a high job quality sector. There may have been a little erosion during and post covid, but it’s been bouncing back since then. There’s also high tenure in the industry, about three years longer than comparable sectors, with employee turnover rates quite low. And as an industry that pays and benefits well, wage levels are comparably high – higher than just about any other sector of the economy. It also has more permanent and full-time employees versus contract and part-time.
“We do a pretty decent job in our sector there,” Chapeskie says. “These are all good things and reasons why people would want to work here and not elsewhere.”
Aware of the need to foster growth within the workforce, EHRC gives the following advice to help the industry focus on attraction, recruitment, and retention.
- The industry must invest in deep talent pipeline development to improve attraction. For example, EHRC is engaging with grade six to eight students. This may sound early, Chapeskie says, but unbelievably it is when people start to get interested in a career in the industry. They’ve also prepared grade nine and ten teaching materials and do youth camps in rural indigenous communities for the grade six to eight cohort, in an effort to try and engage with them early on.
- Focus efforts on recruitment and upskilling of mid-career workers from other sectors.
- Demonstrate commitments to diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives through public action.
- Retain talent through retention strategies – innovative if need be. It will also be worthwhile helping older workers to be better coaches and mentors of the next generation
- Grow all work integrated learning programmes, including apprenticeships, especially in the first and second years. “We have a problem in Canada where we tend to really invest in the third and fourth year but if we don’t do the first two we won’t get to the third and fourth,” Chapeskie says.
- Invest in iterative upskilling to align with technology advancements.
- Foster a culture of R&D through greater industry/academic partnership.
Hydro futures
In response to the growing ageing workforce gap, Waterpower Canada is also trying to encourage people to consider the industry for their futures.
Admitting that it might not be “one of the most modern technologies”, Patterson says the hydro industry is one of the most constant and believes this is an advantage that will help bring students and young workers in who are looking for a long term opportunity.
“We also want to help our members not have to compete with each other for the same limited talent pool, because this this drives up costs for everyone and can be quite disruptive for the industry,” WaterPower Canada’s President adds.
Although more people are needed in the water power sector, Patterson admits it wasn’t attracting new entrants. She believes hydropower is frequently forgotten in many forums. There’s low awareness among students and early career talent with limited visibility into roles and career pathways, while competing sectors are generally more visible and better understood.
WaterPower Canada’s research also found there is no clear pathway into the sector. Even when there is interest, it is hard to navigate. There is no single place to explore careers, information is spread across organisations, and jobs are not easy to find in one place.
“We wanted to make it easy for people considering hydro as a future to find everything and provide a one-stop shop for those sorts of searches,” Patterson says.
This is why WaterPower Canada launched Hydro Futures which can be found at www.hydrofutures.ca. It’s a national career hub for the hydropower sector, designed to help students and early-career professionals explore pathways into the industry. It connects talent directly with employers and jobs and helps employers reach more candidates.
Other features of Hydro Futures include employee stories and career spotlights with employer profiles across Canada. There’s a dedicated hydropower job board, help for candidates to move from interest to application, plus advice about developing CVs. Ultimately it helps make it easier for interested applicants to reach out to the industry, regardless of whatever point they may be in their training process.
“Collectively we should be able to attract more candidates into the sector,” Patterson says, “and that’s our ultimate aim with this site.”
Just in time
One of the things required to help attract more workers is a constant pipeline of development, to ensure there are always projects coming in to help stimulate growth. Projects need to be consistently growing to keep talented people in the country and know they have a future, regardless of which part of the sector they might be going to.
“One of the things I’ve spoken with government officials about is the fact that our country seems to always have lumpy growth,” Patterson says. “So I think there is an imperative for federal policy makers to look at how we encourage growth to be less sporadic and more consistent across the board. And it’s a big challenge because provinces control both the education system as well as the projects in the energy sector. So it’s a complicated system to manage more effectively but something I think we need to consider as well.”
“I think we’re entering a bit of a new era there though,” Chapeskie adds. Previously provinces and territories across Canada gave differing opinions as to the direction of the growth required, but now all of them seem to have agreed to look at growth for the electricity industry more generally.
“So that’s a good news story from my perspective,” he continues, “because it makes it easier to sell the case for more investments in immigration pathways unique to our sector, or ensuring that we’re bringing in more licensed engineers where they’re needed most. As well as encouraging more youth to take programmes that align with our industry, and then ensuring we have the funding in place to maximise the potential of those programmes.”
Reflecting on their discussion, WaterPower Canada’s President admits that although the workforce challenge is still concerning, as she believes: “We’re in time to do something about it and try and turn this ship around.”
Acknowledgement
IWP&DC would like to thank WaterPower Canada for providing the information for this article.
