by Nancy Gardiner
Northern News Services

NNSL (Oct 27/97) - Tradespeople have the upper hand in the Northern job market nowadays.

Employers, though, are in a tight spot.

"There's very few here and they all have jobs, of course. So you have to go south. The hardest thing to get is good mechanics -- plumbing and heating. It's rare in the South and rare here. That's a very tough one, but we've always managed," says Georges D'aoust, manager of Jomanic-Can Inc. in Iqaluit.

"We prefer to use local because it's more practical and economical, but there's very few in the East here. It's improved over 17 years, but it's improving slowly."

In the Western Arctic, it's a continual problem, according to John Weigel, field supervisor with Stan Dean and Sons Ltd. in Hay River.

"We find in our line of work on the construction part of it, trucking and equipment, we have trouble finding skilled operators and even mechanics. It's almost a constant problem and it's hard finding qualified skilled people."

"One of the problems may be there's lots of work down south, people don't want to come North, even if you paid them a good dollar."

Weigel says the problem has been especially noticeable in the past two years.

"We try and hold onto qualified people. If you don't -- there's 10 or so contractors that would hire them in a minute. We're almost in a position where skilled tradespeople are almost holding the contractors at ransom," he says.

"The bottom line is money but even that isn't a concern any more. They don't want to leave their homes," Weigel says. Demands they make have to do with wages, housing and Northern allowance.

"We advertise in the papers and radio. We may even try the Internet sometimes to try and get some people to come up and work for us. We're not the only contractor in this position."

John Plowman, who builds and refurbishes log homes in Fort Smith, says there's a shortage of tradespeople, especially during certain times of the year.

"It's hard to get qualified people aged 18 to 25," Plowman says. His company wants to offer a training course through Fort Smith, or other community colleges.

"The bottom line is frustration, trying to bid on contracts, and it's taking longer to complete projects or you can't bid on projects -- you want to bid on the job but you're hesitant because of that," says Weigel.

The executive director of the NWT Construction Association agrees. "We even did this job-bank program and we found there's a shortage of skilled people everywhere (in the North)," says Dick Bushey.

"In the territories, over the last six years there's been a cutback in government spending, so many younger Northern workers haven't been trained through the apprenticeship program in the NWT."

"In the territories, there's a lot of carpenters, one of the easier trades to get into, but not a lot of heavy-duty equipment mechanics, electricians. That's where the real shortages are, in the higher skilled areas," says Bushey.

"Immigration Canada is recruiting skilled workers from Germany. The federal government is sending teams of people to do the recruiting overseas," he says Bushey.

The majority of miners in Yellowknife during the '30s, '40s and '50s were immigrant miners from Europe. And now people are trying to recruit skilled workers from outside Canada.

"BHP is also having difficulty finding skilled workers, but they are getting the job done for the construction phase. For operations, they'll train their own in-house staff," says Bushey.

Grant Ainsley, executive director of the Alberta Homebuilders Association based in Edmonton, says Alberta contractors are getting by, but are still having trouble getting tradespeople. There's about $15 billion in projects, mostly in northern Alberta, he says.

He says tradespeople are required on repairs from the Manitoba flood and other natural disasters.