Finding skilled labour, input costs reported as pressing obstacles for N.S. businesses: StatsCan

Recruiting skilled employees along with rising input costs — the cost of creating products and services — are the obstacles most widely expected by Nova Scotia businesses heading into 2025, according to new survey data from Statistics Canada.

About one in 10 businesses recently surveyed in the province expects those two factors to pose the greatest challenges in the next three months.

The vice-president of a Halifax engineering, design and construction management company said it's difficult to find skilled workers like bricklayers and formworkers who are important to the construction industry.

"Sometimes there's such a high demand for the labour that the labour is ending up on a project with the bare minimum training," said Maurice Fares with W.M. Fares Group, which works on residential and commercial development projects.

A lack of labour with the needed skills can cause delays and drive up costs, Fares said.

"When there's no skilled labour on the site, sometimes you're going days or weeks with lack of production."

When it comes to rising input costs, agriculture, forestry, fishing and hunting businesses in Nova Scotia were among those most likely to expect that to be their top challenge in the coming months. About 22 per cent think that will be the case.

Farmer Philip Keddy said input costs have been a problem since 2020, when it was harder to obtain fertilizer chemicals and other products needed for farming.

In the second quarter of 2022, farm production costs increased by 17.6 per cent in Nova Scotia compared to the previous year. This matched the national trend at the time, with higher fertilizer costs being driven in part by Russia's invasion of major fertilizer exporter Ukraine.

"Fertilizer has slightly come down this year," said Keddy. "But it would be the only input that we've seen decrease in cost."

Keddy, the production manager for Charles Keddy Farms, pointed to cardboard for shipping produce as an example of one cost that's continued to go up.

"Our whole society has gone to online shopping," Keddy said. "Amazon, everybody else, well, they're huge cardboard users, so those companies are driving up the price of cardboard."

He estimates the farm's input costs have gone up between five and 12 per cent every six months. 

The accommodation and food services industries are also areas where businesses are more likely to expect rising input costs to be their top challenge, with one in four businesses thinking that will be the case. 

In August, the Restaurant Association of Nova Scotia said that nearly half the province's restaurants are operating at a loss or are only breaking even.