Across Ontario, contractors’ attitudes about work volumes for the year ahead are varying considerably.

The latest edition of the Ontario Construction Secretariat’s (OCS’s) contractor survey shows that 41 percent of those surveyed say they expect work volumes to stay the same for 2021, while 29 percent expect to do more business, and 24 percent expect to do less business.

The survey includes input from 500 contractors in the non-residential sector—including union and non-union firms. OCS collected data for the survey between January 26 and February 12.

Attitudes varied across regions. Most optimistic were contractors in the Eastern Region, 43 percent of whom said they expected to do more work in 2021. A third of contractors in the Northern region expect more work in 2021, while 35 percent in the Southwestern region anticipate more work.

By comparison, 27 percent of Central region contractors expect to do less work in 2021, and 28 percent in the GTA expect to do less work. In last year’s survey, those regions’ contractors had the most optimistic outlooks. They are the only regions in this year’s survey where the number of contractors expecting less work in the year outnumbers those expecting more work.

The survey found that, for the most part, contractors’ sources of work in 2021 did not change since 2020. The only noteworthy change in the sources of work is that contractors are anticipating more work will be won privately or sole-sourced (55 percent) as opposed to work won through bidding (45 percent). In 2020 the forecasted split was 46 percent privately-won/sole-sourced and 54 percent bidding.

Contractors also said they expect to do 82 percent of their work inside their regions and 18 percent outside their regions.

Asked about their principal concerns for the year ahead, contractors pointed to the ongoing impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic. Tops on their lists of concerns were supply chain disruptions, project delays or cancellations caused by shutdowns relating to the pandemic, ensuring the health and safety of workers, and the economic impacts of the latest shutdown.

More than half (56 percent) of contractors anticipate having a harder time accessing skilled labour this year compared to 2020; 25 percent said they thought it would be less difficult.

Asked about how much their work was impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic, contractors reported that an average of 35 percent of their work was stopped. Only 4 percent reported that their work was totally stopped, while 9 percent reported no impact at all. Contractors also reported on average that 37 percent of their work for 2021 was delayed.

The survey looked at the financial impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic on revenue streams. About 56 percent of respondents said their revenues in 2020 were lower than in 2019. The average change in revenue between 2019 and 2020 was -16 percent. Looking ahead to 2021, 29 percent of firms expect higher revenue compared to 2020, but 27 percent expect less revenue.

Looking at the impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic on health and safety, 95 percent of respondents said they believe they are meeting enhanced sanitation standard on site and in the office. About two-thirds (64 percent) say they believe those standards should carry forward. About 70  percent said they expect worksite sanitation practices will change permanently as a result of the pandemic, and they have enhanced their health and safety training programs to match.