Building Canada’s Electricity Workforce Aligning Policy, Investment, and Talent for Growth Planning in the Energy Sector: A Discussion Paper Series
Lead author: Electricity Canada Contributing author: Positive Energy, University of Ottawa
Building Canada’s electricity workforce: Aligning policy investment, and talent for growth Planning in the Energy Sector: A Discussion Paper Series October 2026
Authors: Mr. Channa Perera, Vice President, Regulatory and Indigenous Affairs, Electricity Canada
Dr. Monica Gattinger, Full Professor at the School of Political Studies and Founding Chair of Positive Energy, University of Ottawa
Building Canada’s electricity workforce: Aligning policy investment, and talent for growth
Table of Contents Executive summary .................................................................................................... 3 Workforce supply and demand pressures ................................................................... 5 Workforce as enabling infrastructure ................................................................................................. 5 Retention, knowledge transfer, and workforce stability ........................................................................ 8 Labour mobility and credential pathways ...........................................................................................10
Skills development and training systems ................................................................. 14 Technology acceleration ..................................................................................................................14 Work-integrated learning gaps .........................................................................................................16 Mid-career and lifelong learning .......................................................................................................17
System alignment and coordination ......................................................................... 19 Fragmented labour market intelligence .............................................................................................19 Regulatory and investment blind spots .............................................................................................21 Time horizon mismatch ...................................................................................................................22
Conclusion: Mechanisms for durable alignment........................................................ 25 Appendix A: Roles and responsibilities across the electricity workforce ecosystem. 27 Appendix B: Participants in the Energizing Talent Conversation Series.................... 30
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Building Canada’s electricity workforce: Aligning policy investment, and talent for growth
About Electricity Canada Electricity Canada is the national voice for electricity in Canada. Our members generate, transmit, and distribute power to homes and businesses across Canada. We represent integrated electric utilities, independent power producers, transmission and distribution companies, power marketers, and system operators. Our members deliver electricity to all Canadians, in every province and territory.
About Positive Energy The University of Ottawa’s Positive Energy program aims to strengthen public and investor confidence in Canadian energy policy, regulation and decision-making. It uses the convening power of the university to bring together industry, government, Indigenous, environmental and academic leaders on key confidence challenges and undertakes solution-focused applied academic research to develop recommendations for action. Financial supporters include Alberta Energy, the British Columbia Energy Regulator, the Canada Energy Regulator, the Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers, the Canadian Gas Association, Cenovus, the Clean Resource Innovation Network, Electricity Canada, Ovintiv, Natural Resources Canada and PETRONAS Canada. Nanos Research is PE's official pollster. Positive Energy’s Discussion Paper Series on Planning in the Energy Sector aims to share insightful analyses on a variety of topics related to planning in the energy sector. The Series aims to spur debate, dialogue and reflection.
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Building Canada’s electricity workforce: Aligning policy investment, and talent for growth
Executive summary Canada is entering a period of sustained growth and transformation in its electricity system. Electrification of transportation, expansion of clean generation, industrial decarbonization, and the rapid growth of data and digital infrastructure are driving significant increases in electricity demand. Recent projections suggest that, under current policies, electricity demand could rise by about 50 per cent by 2050, with even higher growth possible under accelerated development scenarios.1 Meeting this demand will require substantial, sustained investment in generation, transmission, and distribution infrastructure across the country. This moment presents a clear opportunity to build a modern, highly skilled, and adaptable electricity workforce capable of supporting long-term economic growth, energy reliability, and global competitiveness. However, workforce capacity is emerging as a critical constraint on the pace and feasibility of electricity system expansion. Workforce capacity should be treated as enabling infrastructure. It is not a downstream labour market outcome, but a foundational condition for delivering electricity infrastructure. Electrification is inherently labour-intensive, requiring significant expansion of skilled trades, engineering, technical occupations and the broader workforce needed to support the build-out, operation, and maintenance of the system.2 Labour availability is increasingly shaping project timelines, costs, and overall system performance, with labour market forecasts pointing to sustained recruitment pressures driven by both industry growth and high levels of expected retirements. 3 Where skilled labour is not available when and where it is needed, project delays and cost pressures can ultimately affect the affordability of electricity infrastructure and the customers who rely on it. Stakeholders across industry, governments, labour organizations, post-secondary institutions, and Indigenous partners are navigating a shared set of structural pressures. These include sustained competition for skilled labour across sectors, an aging workforce and accelerating retirement trends, challenges attracting new entrants and internationally trained workers, capacity constraints within post-secondary and apprenticeship systems, and challenges in ensuring training keeps pace with evolving technologies, occupations, and operational requirements.4 These pressures are compounded by systemic coordination gaps. Workforce planning, infrastructure investment, and regulatory processes are often undertaken independently in 1 Canada Energy Regulator, Canada’s Energy Future 2026: Energy Supply and Demand Projections to 2050 (Ottawa: CER, 2026),
https://www.rec-cer.gc.ca/en/data-analysis/canada-energy-future/2026/canada-energy-futures-2026.pdf. 2 International Energy Agency, World Energy Employment 2025 (Paris: IEA, 2025), https://iea.blob.core.windows.net/assets/e5b9e908-26fe-4228-8978-e4ee36c555ed/WorldEnergyEmployment2025.pdf. 3 Electricity Human Resources Canada, Electricity in Demand: Labour Market Insights 2023–2028 (Ottawa: EHRC, 2024), https://ehrc.ca/wp-content/uploads/2024/05/Electricity-in-Demand-Labour-Market-Insights.pdf. 4 Electricity Human Resources Canada, Electricity in Demand: Labour Market Insights 2023–2028 (Ottawa: EHRC, 2024), https://ehrc.ca/wp-content/uploads/2024/05/Electricity-in-Demand-Labour-Market-Insights.pdf.
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Building Canada’s electricity workforce: Aligning policy investment, and talent for growth
practice, with limited integration, while labour market data lacks the granularity and alignment required to support proactive decision-making. As a result, workforce availability is increasingly shaping infrastructure feasibility, creating a growing risk that labour constraints will delay or limit electricity system expansion unless addressed through coordinated action. This discussion paper draws on insights from the Energizing Talent Conversation Series, a collaborative initiative led by Electricity Canada, Positive Energy at the University of Ottawa, and Electricity Human Resources Canada. Through three roundtable discussions held throughout 2025, the series brought together representatives from electric utilities, governments, labour organizations, post-secondary institutions, and workforce development experts to examine the structural workforce challenges associated with Canada’s electricity transition and identify practical opportunities to strengthen coordination across the workforce ecosystem.
The discussion identified three core conclusions. •
Workforce considerations should be systematically integrated into infrastructure planning, regulatory processes, and investment decision-making.
•
Training and skills development systems must be more responsive to technological change and evolving workforce needs.
•
Stronger coordination mechanisms are required to align workforce development with long-term system planning.
Addressing these challenges will require treating workforce development as a core component of energy system planning, supported by clearer accountability, improved data integration, and sustained collaboration among industry, governments, and training institutions. Doing so will help accelerate infrastructure delivery, strengthen investment certainty, and build the workforce needed to power Canada’s long-term economic growth and energy future.
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Building Canada’s electricity workforce: Aligning policy investment, and talent for growth
Workforce supply and demand pressures Workforce as enabling infrastructure Canada's electricity transition offers an opportunity to build one of the world's most skilled, resilient, and future-ready electricity workforces. Realizing that opportunity will require recognizing workforce capacity as a foundational input to electricity system growth, alongside capital investment, permitting, and supply chains. Without sufficient workforce availability, infrastructure cannot be delivered on time, at cost, or at scale. Electricity demand in Canada is projected to grow significantly over the coming decades, driven by electrification, industrial development, and the expansion of digital infrastructure. Recent projections indicate that electricity demand is expected to increase substantially by 2050 under all scenarios, with demand rising by approximately 50 per cent under current policy assumptions and significantly more under accelerated electrification and economic growth scenarios.5 Meeting this demand will require a sustained build-out of generation, transmission, and distribution infrastructure across the country. Delivering this infrastructure is inherently labour-intensive. It depends on a wide range of occupations, including skilled trades, engineers, system operators, specialized technical roles, and the organizational functions that support project development, construction, operations, and maintenance. Expanding electricity systems will require not only more workers, but also evolving skill sets across the workforce as digitalization, automation, and grid modernization reshape how electricity infrastructure is designed, built, operated, and maintained. At the same time, labour shortages are increasingly acting as a constraint on infrastructure deployment, with implications for project timelines, costs, and system performance.6 Several structural pressures are driving these constraints. A significant share of the electricity and skilled trades workforce is approaching retirement age. Electricity Human Resources Canada estimates that approximately 15,700 retirements are expected across Canada’s electricity sector between 2023 and 2028, representing most of the projected hiring needs over that period.7 These pressures are not limited to technical occupations. Sustained workforce growth will also require the organizational and professional capacity needed to plan, finance, regulate, deliver, and support an expanding electricity system. At the same time, the sector faces sustained competition for talent from construction, manufacturing, defence, technology, and other sectors that draw from the same labour pool. Training systems are also constrained in their 5
Canada Energy Regulator, Canada’s Energy Future 2026: Energy Supply and Demand Projections to 2050 (Ottawa: CER, 2026), https://www.rec-cer.gc.ca/en/data-analysis/canada-energy-future/2026/canada-energy-futures-2026.pdf. 6 International Energy Agency, World Energy Employment 2025 (Paris: IEA, 2025), https://iea.blob.core.windows.net/assets/e5b9e908-26fe-4228-8978-e4ee36c555ed/WorldEnergyEmployment2025.pdf. 7 Electricity Human Resources Canada, Electricity in Demand: Labour Market Insights 2023–2028 (Ottawa: EHRC, 2024), https://ehrc.ca/wp-content/uploads/2024/05/Electricity-in-Demand-Labour-Market-Insights.pdf.
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Building Canada’s electricity workforce: Aligning policy investment, and talent for growth
ability to scale, due to funding limitations, instructor shortages, and reliance on employer participation in apprenticeship pathways. In addition, workforce demand is often geographically concentrated around major projects, while labour supply remains unevenly distributed across regions. Attracting sufficient new entrants will require the sector to broaden its talent pipeline. This includes strengthening pathways for young people and underrepresented groups, raising awareness of careers in electricity, and ensuring that internationally trained professionals and newcomers can translate their skills and experience into meaningful participation in the Canadian electricity workforce.
Indigenous partnerships: A critical workforce opportunity Indigenous communities and workers play a vital role in building the workforce needed for Canada’s electricity expansion. Many Indigenous communities struggle with low labour participation rates resulting from many complex historical factors. Many emerging electricity projects are located near underemployed Indigenous communities, yet the industry continues to face labour shortages while expanding generation, transmission, and distribution infrastructure. Stronger partnerships with Indigenous communities can broaden pathways into skilled trades and professional careers while supporting long-term employment and economic opportunities. These partnerships should be developed collaboratively with Indigenous communities, reflect their community needs, and connect education, training, and apprenticeships with the industry’s long-term workforce requirements. Such relationships are connected to the many joint-equity partnerships between Indigenous communities and electricity companies for power generation, transmission, and energy storage projects. Structural challenges to Indigenous workforce participation will require time and resources dedicated to identifying local challenges and working with multiple organizations to provide solutions that enable greater Indigenous labour participation. Taken together, these pressures have implications for the feasibility and timing of infrastructure delivery, as well as for the cost of delivering it. As electricity investment accelerates, the scale of workforce requirements associated with major projects is becoming increasingly significant. Hydro-Québec, for example, estimates that delivering its planned electricity expansion will require approximately 35,000 additional qualified workers annually between 2025 and 2034, illustrating the scale of workforce growth required to support major electricity investments.8
8 Canada Electricity Advisory Council, Canada Electricity Advisory Council Interim Report (Ottawa: Natural Resources Canada,
December 2023), 16, https://natural-resources.canada.ca/sites/nrcan/files/pdf/CEAC%20Interim%20Report%202023-12-13.pdf.
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Building Canada’s electricity workforce: Aligning policy investment, and talent for growth
Recent federal initiatives, including the National Electricity Strategy and commitments in recent federal budgets, recognize the need to accelerate electricity infrastructure development to meet growing demand.9 However, workforce readiness is not yet consistently incorporated into electricity policy, regulatory processes, or infrastructure investment decisions in ways that support proactive workforce development. Workforce requirements may be assessed as part of individual projects, but these assessments do not always translate into coordinated action across utilities, governments, regulators, labour organizations, and training institutions. Participants in the Energizing Talent Conversation Series consistently identified this coordination gap as a key challenge. The broader workforce development system involves multiple actors, funding streams, and timelines, making it difficult to align training capacity, recruitment, and regional workforce development with emerging project needs. Without earlier coordination, opportunities to address workforce constraints can emerge too late to support project timelines effectively. This will require coordinated action across key actors and clearer expectations for how workforce readiness is assessed.
Key recommendations: Utilities and project developers should integrate workforce planning into business case development, capital planning, and project governance from the earliest stages of project development. This should include developing occupation-specific workforce forecasts, identifying anticipated hiring and training timelines, assessing regional labour requirements and workforce risks, and identifying strategies to address gaps before finalizing major investment decisions. Federal and provincial governments, together with electricity regulators, should strengthen the consideration of workforce impacts within major electricity policy initiatives, regulatory proceedings, and publicly funded infrastructure investments. Where appropriate, these processes should assess projected labour demand, regional workforce availability, training capacity, and competition for workers from other sectors, and identify workforce development measures needed to support project delivery. Post-secondary institutions and labour organizations should establish standing curriculum advisory partnerships to regularly review program content and develop competency frameworks for emerging occupations. These partnerships should also incorporate occupation-specific labour market information into program planning, and adjust enrolment and training capacity in response to projected workforce demand. In practice, this means embedding workforce assessments within capital planning processes, improving visibility into occupation-specific and regional labour requirements, and aligning project timelines with workforce development pathways. Doing so would increase confidence
9 Natural Resources Canada, Powering Canada Strong: A National Strategy for an Electrified Canadian Economy (Ottawa:
Government of Canada, May 2026), https://natural-resources.canada.ca/energy-sources/electricity-infrastructure/powering-canadastrong-national-strategy-electrified-canadian-economy.
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Building Canada’s electricity workforce: Aligning policy investment, and talent for growth
that the workforce required to deliver major electricity projects can be developed and mobilized when and where needed, reducing delivery risk and cost pressures, improving investment certainty, and supporting a timely expansion of Canada’s electricity system.
Retention, knowledge transfer, and workforce stability Building workforce capacity requires more than recruiting new workers. Workforce availability is also shaped by the sector’s ability to retain workers, transfer critical knowledge, and support sustained participation over time. As electricity systems expand, these factors are becoming increasingly important to workforce stability, operational resilience, and system performance. A defining feature of the electricity workforce is the concentration of expertise among late-career workers. Retirement is expected to be the primary driver of workforce demand over the next several years. Electricity Human Resources Canada estimates that nearly 28,000 new employees will be needed between 2023 and 2028, with 57 per cent of hiring required to replace retiring workers and 43 per cent to support industry growth.10 This creates not only significant replacement demand but also a growing risk of losing critical institutional knowledge. In many cases, that knowledge is highly specialized and developed through years of on-the-job experience. While some organizations have established formal mentorship, apprenticeship, or succession practices, knowledge transfer remains uneven across the sector and within organizations. In some cases, formal processes are concentrated in executive or other highly visible roles, while critical non-executive positions may receive less attention or may not have been formally identified as succession risks. Additionally, workforce shortages can make knowledge transfer difficult. When existing workers are already needed to meet current operational demands, dedicating time to mentorship, training, and succession activities can be difficult without additional capacity.
10 Electricity Human Resources Canada, Electricity in Demand: Labour Market Insights 2023–2028 (Ottawa: EHRC, 2024),
https://ehrc.ca/wp-content/uploads/2024/05/Electricity-in-Demand-Labour-Market-Insights.pdf.
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Building Canada’s electricity workforce: Aligning policy investment, and talent for growth
This creates a growing risk that critical operational knowledge will be lost faster than it can be replaced, particularly in occupations where competency is developed through years of practical experience and where errors can have significant safety and reliability implications. At the same time, retention challenges are contributing to workforce instability. High turnover increases pressure on recruitment and training systems, disrupts continuity and project delivery, and increases the cost of developing replacement workers. Where turnover contributes to project delays or reduced operational capacity, these costs can also affect the broader cost and predictability of electricity infrastructure delivery. Retention is shaped by both external labour market dynamics and internal workplace factors. Competition from construction, manufacturing, defence, and technology sectors creates strong demand for similar skill sets, while career progression, workplace culture, compensation and benefits, and job conditions influence long-term participation within the sector. Evidence indicates that retention is closely linked to clear career pathways, opportunities for advancement and professional development, access to ongoing upskilling, market-aligned compensation and benefits, and workplace cultures that support coaching, mentorship, and employee development. Providing opportunities for workers to build new skills and progress into emerging or higher-responsibility roles can also support retention as the sector evolves.11 Workforce participation is also influenced by broader social and economic conditions. Access to childcare and eldercare can affect participation and retention, particularly for workers balancing caregiving responsibilities, while housing and transportation constraints can create additional barriers to training and employment. These barriers can disproportionately affect women, Indigenous Peoples, racialized communities, and other groups that have historically faced barriers to participation, making workforce accessibility an important consideration in advancing equity, diversity and inclusion.12
Workforce stability should therefore be treated as a strategic objective of workforce planning, rather than simply an outcome of successful recruitment.
11 Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, OECD Employment Outlook 2025 (Paris: OECD),
https://www.oecd.org/content/dam/oecd/en/publications/reports/2025/07/oecd-employment-outlook-2025_5345f034/194a947ben.pdf. 12 Future Skills Centre, Pathways to Opportunity: Addressing Barriers to Labour Force Participation in a Changing World of Work (Toronto: FSC), https://fsc-ccf.ca/wp-content/uploads/2026/04/Pathways-to-Opportunity-BlueprintADE-2025.pdf.
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Building Canada’s electricity workforce: Aligning policy investment, and talent for growth
Key recommendations: Utilities and other electricity sector employers should adopt comprehensive workforce continuity strategies that integrate succession planning, retention, and knowledge transfer. This should include identifying critical roles at risk of retirement, including critical non-executive roles, identifying internal talent that could be developed into high-need roles, implementing formal mentorship and knowledge transfer programs, documenting critical operational knowledge, establishing clear career progression and development pathways, supporting leadership and professional development, and regularly monitoring workforce indicators such as turnover, retirement eligibility, and employee engagement to identify emerging workforce risks. Post-secondary institutions and other training providers should also incorporate leadership, communication, mentorship, and other professional skills into relevant programs and continuing education, in partnership with employers and industry. Federal, provincial, and municipal governments should incorporate workforceenabling infrastructure, including housing, childcare, eldercare, transportation, and community services, into regional planning for major electricity infrastructure projects as governments accelerate investment in electricity infrastructure. This should include leveraging existing federal programs, such as the Affordable Housing Fund13, to support workforce housing in communities experiencing significant electricity sector growth, and refining Canada-wide Early Learning and Child Care14 agreements to improve access to childcare in regions facing workforce shortages. Where appropriate, governments should coordinate these investments with utilities, Indigenous communities, municipalities, and other local partners to support workforce attraction, long-term retention, and community readiness. Together, these actions would strengthen workforce continuity, preserve critical operational knowledge, and improve the sector's ability to sustain the skilled workforce needed to deliver on Canada's long-term electricity ambitions.
Labour mobility and credential pathways Labour mobility and credential recognition play a critical role in determining how efficiently the electricity workforce can respond to changing demand across regions and projects. Even where overall workforce supply is sufficient, barriers to mobility and entry can limit the sector's ability to deploy workers where they are most needed. In a rapidly expanding electricity system, labour mobility is not simply an employment issue. It is a mechanism to strengthen system resilience by enabling skilled workers to move to where demand is greatest. Recent federal initiatives, including continued modernization of the Red Seal Program and efforts to improve interprovincial labour mobility, represent an important step toward reducing
13 Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation, Affordable Housing Fund. 14 Employment and Social Development Canada, Canada-wide Early Learning and Child Care, Government of Canada.
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Building Canada’s electricity workforce: Aligning policy investment, and talent for growth
barriers for designated trades. However, mobility challenges extend beyond the occupations and jurisdictions covered by these initiatives. Differences in provincial and territorial requirements can still create barriers to moving between jurisdictions. These include differences in working-at-heights training requirements, as well as differences in apprenticeship training requirements such as total in-school and on-the-job training hours and the sequencing of technical training.15 , 16 Efforts are underway to address some of these differences by harmonizing occupational health and safety training and apprenticeship requirements. There are also examples of what greater alignment can achieve. The Atlantic Apprenticeship Harmonization Partnership has aligned apprenticeship rules, processes, and standards across the four Atlantic provinces, with 23 trades now fully harmonized, including powerline technicians. The initiative has standardized training levels, total training hours, technical training, and other apprenticeship requirements, providing a regional example of how greater alignment can support apprentice mobility while maintaining consistent training and certification standards.17 Where alignment remains incomplete, these barriers can have practical consequences for project delivery. Projects may face delays, costs may increase, and workforce shortages may persist in high-demand regions even when workers are available elsewhere. These constraints can increase the cost of delivering infrastructure and make it more difficult to maintain predictable project timeline, with implications for the affordability of electricity system expansion. In parallel, internationally trained professionals represent an important and underutilized source of workforce capacity. Internationally trained Professional Engineers (P.Eng.) made up 30 per cent of newly licensed engineers in Canada in 2023.18 However, credential recognition processes can require workers to navigate different provincial licensing, certification, and registration requirements. As standards for recognizing education, skills, and experience continue to vary across jurisdictions, workers may face additional administrative requirements when moving between provinces, creating barriers to labour mobility.19 Delays in credential recognition can leave experienced professionals underemployed or outside the workforce at a time when employers in the electricity sector face growing recruitment pressures.
15 Employment and Social Development Canada, “Federal, Provincial and Territorial Ministers Responsible for Labour Meet to Discuss
Shared Priorities for Workplaces across Canada,” Government of Canada, April 2026, https://www.canada.ca/en/employment-socialdevelopment/news/2026/04/federal-provincial-and-territorial-ministers-responsible-for-labour-meet-to-discuss-shared-priorities-forworkplaces-across-canada.html 16 Employment and Social Development Canada, “Backgrounder: Atlantic Apprenticeship Harmonization Project,” Government of Canada, October 2017, https://www.canada.ca/en/employment-socialdevelopment/news/2017/10/backgrounder_atlanticapprenticeshipharmonizationproject.html. 17 Newfoundland and Labrador Apprenticeship and Trades Certification Division, “Atlantic Apprenticeship Harmonization Partnership (AAHP),” Government of Newfoundland and Labrador, accessed August 11, 2026, https://www.gov.nl.ca/atcd/tradeharmonization/aahp/. 18 Engineers Canada, 2024 National Membership Information (Ottawa: Engineers Canada, 2024), “From engineering student to professional engineer,” data for 2023, https://engineerscanada.ca/reports/national-membership-report/2024-national-membershipinformation. 19 Employment and Social Development Canada, Summative Evaluation of the Foreign Credential Recognition Program (Ottawa: Government of Canada, 2015), Executive Summary, "Barriers to Inter-provincial Labour Mobility."
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Building Canada’s electricity workforce: Aligning policy investment, and talent for growth
For newcomers, these employment barriers can be compounded by the need to navigate other unfamiliar systems, including health, education, housing, and settlement services, at the same time they are establishing themselves in Canada. Employer-supported transition pathways can play an important role in helping internationally trained professionals integrate into the electricity workforce by combining workplace experience with credential recognition. These pathways can help bridge the gap between having the qualifications and experience needed for an occupation and meeting the requirements to practise in Canada. Expanding access to these pathways would help employers make better use of existing skills and experience as demand for skilled workers grows. Taken together, these challenges point to a broader issue: workforce capacity is not only determined by how many individuals are trained, but by how effectively workers can enter, move within, and remain in the labour market. Where barriers persist, potential workforce capacity remains underutilized. Addressing these challenges will require coordinated action across governments, regulators, employers, and credentialing bodies.
Key recommendations: Provincial governments, regulators, and credentialing bodies should build on ongoing efforts to modernize the Red Seal Program and improve interprovincial labour mobility by addressing remaining barriers to workforce mobility. 20 This should include improving consistency and transparency in licensing, credential recognition, training, documentation, and application processes; reducing unnecessary duplication where requirements are equivalent; and expanding mutual recognition arrangements for regulated and non-regulated electricity occupations where competency and safety standards are equivalent. Utilities, employers, and labour organizations should expand transition pathways for internationally trained professionals by establishing structured workplace bridging programs, providing supervised work experience and mentorship, partnering with regulatory bodies and post-secondary institutions, and supporting workers as they complete credential recognition requirements. Industry associations should build on existing collaboration with utilities, governments, regulators, labour organizations, and credentialing bodies by identifying electricity-specific labour mobility barriers, sharing leading practices across jurisdictions, and developing practical guidance to support more consistent approaches to workforce mobility and credential recognition.
20 Natural Resources Canada, Powering Canada Strong: A National Strategy for an Electrified Canadian Economy (Ottawa:
Government of Canada, May 2026).
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Building Canada’s electricity workforce: Aligning policy investment, and talent for growth
Together, these actions would help unlock existing workforce capacity, improve the movement of skilled workers across jurisdictions, and strengthen the sector's ability to respond to changing regional and project-specific labour demand.
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Building Canada’s electricity workforce: Aligning policy investment, and talent for growth
Skills development and training systems Technology acceleration Rapid technological change presents an opportunity to modernize Canada's electricity workforce while improving productivity, resilience, and system performance. Automation, artificial intelligence, renewable generation, energy storage, cybersecurity systems, and digital grid technologies are transforming electricity operations and reshaping the knowledge, skills, and competencies required across the workforce.21These changes are affecting both emerging roles and established occupations across the sector. Importantly, these shifts are not limited to new roles. Existing occupations across trades, engineering, and system operations are evolving, with increasing expectations for digital literacy, data interpretation, and familiarity with software-based control systems.22 This means the workforce response cannot focus solely on preparing new entrants. It must also provide pathways for existing workers to develop and demonstrate new competencies as their roles evolve. The pace of change is particularly evident in artificial intelligence.
Electricity Human Resources Canada’s research found that 60 per cent of electricitysector employees reported using AI tools, while only 24 per cent had received formal AI training, highlighting a significant gap between technology adoption and workforce preparation.23 However, training systems have struggled to keep pace with this rate of change. Curriculum development processes within post-secondary institutions often operate on multi-year cycles, while technology and operational practices continue to evolve more rapidly. This challenge extends beyond formal education.
21
International Energy Agency, World Energy Employment 2025 (Paris: IEA, 2025), https://iea.blob.core.windows.net/assets/e5b9e908-26fe-4228-8978-e4ee36c555ed/WorldEnergyEmployment2025.pdf. 22 International Energy Agency, World Energy Employment 2025 (Paris: IEA, 2025), https://iea.blob.core.windows.net/assets/e5b9e908-26fe-4228-8978-e4ee36c555ed/WorldEnergyEmployment2025.pdf. 23 Electricity Human Resources Canada, Powering Intelligence: AI-Driven Change in Canada’s Electricity Workforce (Ottawa: Electricity Human Resources Canada, 2025), https://ehrc.ca/wp-content/uploads/2026/02/EHRC-Powering_Intelligence-2025.pdf
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Building Canada’s electricity workforce: Aligning policy investment, and talent for growth
According to Electricity Human Resources Canada, only 4 per cent of electricity employers reported having a training plan that fully addresses the skills needs associated with technological change, while two-thirds indicated that their existing training plans do not adequately respond to changing skills requirements. 24 The challenge, therefore, is not simply the speed at which educational institutions update curricula. Employers are also navigating how to identify, develop and maintain the skills required as technologies and operational practices change. In practice, employers are increasingly relying on on-the-job learning to address emerging skill needs. While this approach provides flexibility and allows training to respond quickly to operational needs, it can also lead to differences in how technology-related competencies are developed, assessed, and recognized across organizations and regions. As technology-related skills are increasingly developed through employer-based training and other forms of applied learning, questions of competency recognition become more important. Skills developed within one organization may not always be readily understood or recognized by another employer, particularly where they are not reflected in formal credentials or competency frameworks. This can limit the portability of skills and make movement between employers or occupations more difficult. Developing clearer approaches to assessing and recognizing emerging competencies, including through modular training or micro-credentials where appropriate, could help workers demonstrate skills acquired through technology-related training while supporting greater labour mobility. This creates a structural gap between skills developed through formal education and those required in modern electricity operations, with implications for operational reliability, system performance, and the successful deployment of new technologies. Recent federal investments in skills development and training provide an important foundation for preparing Canada's future workforce. However, ensuring training systems keep pace with rapid technological change will require greater flexibility in curriculum development, instructor capacity, and training infrastructure.
Key recommendations: Utilities, equipment manufacturers, and other electricity sector employers should establish standing curriculum advisory committees with post-secondary institutions to support ongoing curriculum review and renewal. These partnerships should regularly identify emerging technical competencies, validate learning outcomes, assess the impact of new technologies on existing occupations, and provide timely input on curriculum updates to ensure training keeps pace with evolving industry needs.
Electricity Human Resources Canada, Work Transformed: The Impact of Technology (Ottawa: Electricity Human Resources Canada, 2023), 39, Figure 18 https://ehrc.ca/wp-content/uploads/2023/07/EHRC-Work-TransformedWeb.pdf?_gl=1*sexyva*_gcl_au*MTM4MzU0MDY5OS4xNzgzNjExMDc3*_ga*NDM0NDY2ODA3LjE3NTkxNTIxNDI.*_ga_2R35GJZ4BB *czE3ODM2MTEwNzckbzE5JGcwJHQxNzgzNjExMDc3JGo2MCRsMCRoMA.. 24
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Building Canada’s electricity workforce: Aligning policy investment, and talent for growth
Post-secondary institutions should establish ongoing curriculum advisory partnerships with utilities and other electricity sector employers and regularly integrate emerging technologies, including automation, artificial intelligence, cybersecurity, digital grid technologies, renewable energy systems, and energy storage, into curriculum. Institutions should also establish instructor-industry exchanges, professional development opportunities, and utility placements to ensure teaching reflects current operational practices. Federal and provincial governments should build on existing investments in skills development and training infrastructure by investing in modern training infrastructure, including digital simulation technologies, specialized laboratory equipment, and instructor development. Governments should also work with post-secondary institutions and quality assurance bodies to streamline curriculum approval and update processes for high-demand electricity occupations, enabling training programs to respond more quickly to technological change. Together, these actions would better align workforce capabilities with technological change, enabling the electricity sector to adopt new technologies safely, efficiently, and at scale.
Work-integrated learning gaps Expanding work-integrated learning presents an opportunity to strengthen the transition from education to employment while building a more workforce-ready electricity sector. Apprenticeships, co-operative education placements, and other forms of applied learning allow individuals to develop practical skills, understand workplace expectations, and transition more effectively into employment. However, access to these opportunities remains uneven. Work-integrated learning placements are not consistently available across programs or regions, and participation is often constrained by employer capacity.25 The challenge is particularly pronounced for smaller utilities and organizations that may lack dedicated staff or resources to supervise students while maintaining operational responsibilities. For these employers, the cost and capacity required to supervise placements can be a significant barrier to participation. In addition, schedules and program structures do not always align with operational needs. Electricity sector work can be project-based and subject to demand-driven fluctuations, while educational institutions operate on fixed academic calendars. This misalignment can reduce the availability and effectiveness of placements. The result is that some graduates enter the workforce without sufficient hands-on experience, requiring additional onboarding and job-specific training, which creates inefficiencies for employers and delays new entrants' ability to contribute productively to operations.
25 Universities Canada, “University and college students should have access to work-integrated learning,”
https://univcan.ca/news/university-college-students-access-work-integrated-learning/.
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Building Canada’s electricity workforce: Aligning policy investment, and talent for growth
Addressing these gaps will require targeted changes to how work-integrated learning is structured and delivered.
Key recommendations: Utilities and other electricity sector employers should expand participation in workintegrated learning by increasing co-operative education, apprenticeship, and internship opportunities; adopting flexible placement models that align with operational and project schedules; and exploring shared supervision models, regional partnerships, or consortium approaches that enable smaller utilities to participate. Federal and provincial governments should continue investing in wage subsidies, tax credits, and other employer incentives that expand work-integrated learning opportunities, particularly for small and medium-sized utilities, rural employers, and organizations with limited supervisory capacity. This should include funding models that better reflect the costs of supervision, encourage longer-duration placements where appropriate, and reduce administrative barriers to employer participation. Building on successful initiatives such as the Student Work Placement Program, governments should prioritize funding models that reduce the financial and supervisory barriers to hosting students and apprentices. This is particularly important given that 99.4 per cent of employers participating in the Student Work Placement Program reported that work-integrated learning placements benefitted their organization.26 Post-secondary institutions should work with utilities and employers to design more flexible work-integrated learning models by aligning academic calendars with operational and project schedules where feasible, expanding year-round placement opportunities, and incorporating employer feedback into program planning. Where appropriate, post-secondary institutions should consider incorporating a meaningful work-integrated learning requirement into relevant electricity-related programs, particularly where practical experience is essential to occupational readiness. Together, these actions would strengthen the transition from education to employment, ensuring more graduates enter the electricity workforce with the practical skills and workplace experience needed to contribute effectively from day one.
Mid-career and lifelong learning The need for skills development in the electricity sector extends beyond new entrants. As technologies, tools, and operational practices continue to evolve, the existing workforce must also adapt. This includes updating technical skills, learning new systems, and transitioning into emerging roles.
26 Employment and Social Development Canada, Evaluation of the Student Work Placement Program (Ottawa: Government of
Canada, 2022), Executive Summary and Key Findings.
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Building Canada’s electricity workforce: Aligning policy investment, and talent for growth
However, current training systems are not well designed to support mid-career and lifelong learning. Opportunities for short-cycle, modular training remain limited, and many programs require full-time participation or extended time commitments that are not feasible for working professionals.27 The financial cost of training, including tuition, lost income, and other costs associated with taking time away from work, can create additional barriers to participation. This challenge is particularly important in the electricity sector, where a large share of the workforce is in the later stages of their careers and must continue adapting to new technologies. Yet, participation in job-related training declines with age. In 2024, only 23.1 per cent of Canadian workers aged 55 to 64 reported participating in job-related training, the lowest rate of any age group, highlighting the need for more flexible learning models that enable experienced workers to continuously update their skills while remaining in the workforce.28 In addition, training pathways often do not adequately recognize prior learning or work experience, requiring workers to repeat content rather than build on existing skills. Greater use of prior learning assessment and recognition, competency assessments, and opportunities to challenge examinations where workers can demonstrate existing occupational competencies could reduce unnecessary duplication. Regulators also have an important role in ensuring that these approaches are appropriately recognized within regulated occupations. There are also coordination challenges across training providers. Similar programs may be offered by multiple institutions while gaps remain in emerging areas of demand, and employers often have limited visibility into available training opportunities across jurisdictions. Addressing this challenge requires a shift in how training systems are designed and delivered for mid-career workers. Training pathways should be structured to support continuous, incremental skill development rather than episodic, full-time participation.
Key recommendations: Post-secondary institutions and training providers should build on existing investments in workforce development by supporting funding models that enable flexible, part-time, and employer-supported training. This should include expanding funding for modular and stackable learning opportunities with clear and consistent learning outcomes and competency recognition and reducing financial barriers for workers seeking to upskill while remaining employed. Training providers and credentialing bodies should strengthen recognition of prior learning by developing more consistent assessment and credential recognition
27 Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, OECD Employment Outlook 2025 (Paris: OECD),
https://www.oecd.org/content/dam/oecd/en/publications/reports/2025/07/oecd-employment-outlook-2025_5345f034/194a947ben.pdf. 28 Statistics Canada, Participation in Education and Training Among Canadian Workers, 2024, Catalogue no. 14-28-0001 (Ottawa: Statistics Canada, 2025), https://www150.statcan.gc.ca/n1/pub/14-28-0001/2025001/article/00006-eng.htm.
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Building Canada’s electricity workforce: Aligning policy investment, and talent for growth
processes that recognize existing skills, work experience, and prior education, reducing unnecessary duplication and enabling workers to build on existing competencies. Together, these actions would create a more adaptable workforce, strengthen continuous skills development, and improve the sector's ability to respond to technological change over time.
System alignment and coordination Fragmented labour market intelligence Workforce challenges in the electricity sector are not only a function of labour supply or training capacity, but of how workforce information is integrated into planning and decisionmaking. Canada generates a significant amount of data on labour markets, education and training, and infrastructure investment. However, these datasets are often developed independently and used for different purposes, limiting their ability to provide a coordinated picture of workforce readiness for major electricity investments. Labour market information in Canada is distributed across multiple sources, and the availability, timeliness, and level of detail vary across occupations and regions. These limitations are particularly pronounced for newer and emerging occupations, where national data systems may not yet provide consistent or sufficiently granular information.29 Workforce data is produced by a range of actors, including federal and provincial governments, industry associations, and post-secondary institutions, each using different methodologies, definitions, and time horizons. While Canada maintains a national occupational classification system, labour market data is generated through multiple tools and jurisdictions that do not always apply consistent definitions, limiting comparability across datasets. 30 The National Occupational Classification also has limitations for emerging occupations. Its update cycle and backward-looking structure mean that new roles may not be clearly defined or captured until they are sufficiently established in the labour market. The absence of consistent occupational definitions and standards for emerging electricity occupations can therefore limit the ability to collect and compare workforce data as new roles develop. In practice, this means that workforce demand identified through job postings, training program outputs, and longterm occupational forecasts may not align, while regional differences in labour supply, training capacity, and demand can be obscured by national-level data. In addition, different labour market data sources can produce inconsistent signals due to variations in methodology, coverage, and timing. For example, survey-based employment data may lag behind real-time demand signals, while job posting data may overrepresent
29 Labour Market Information Council, Labour Market Imbalances: An LMIC Guide (Ottawa: LMIC, 2025), https://lmic-
cimt.ca/labour-market-imbalances-guide/. 30 Labour Market Information Council, Labour Market Imbalances: An LMIC Guide (Ottawa: LMIC, 2025), https://lmiccimt.ca/labour-market-imbalances-guide/.
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Building Canada’s electricity workforce: Aligning policy investment, and talent for growth
certain occupations or regions due to differences in coverage.31 These inconsistencies make it difficult for decision-makers to determine whether workforce shortages are structural, cyclical, or localized, and to respond appropriately. For emerging occupations that are not yet well represented in national data systems, employer surveys and industry-level data collection can provide an important complementary source of information on workforce demand and skills requirements. A remaining gap is the extent to which energy system modelling and workforce forecasting are consistently integrated. Existing initiatives, including Electricity Human Resources Canada’s workforce modelling work linked to energy system scenarios, demonstrate the potential for greater integration. However, workforce requirements are not yet consistently incorporated into the broader range of energy system planning and investment analyses.32 At the same time, workforce planning in the electricity sector requires long lead times, with many roles taking several years to reach full competency. In practice, this means that decisions about infrastructure investment may be made without a clear understanding of whether the workforce can be trained, mobilized, and retained in time to support project delivery.
Key recommendations: Federal and provincial governments, industry associations, and system planners should build on existing labour market information initiatives, including federal sectoral workforce programming, by improving the consistency of labour market definitions, reporting standards, and data sharing across jurisdictions. This should include adopting common data standards, aligning key workforce indicators, developing or supporting occupational definitions and competency standards for emerging occupations, expanding data-sharing agreements, and improving interoperability across existing labour market information systems to support more comparable and actionable workforce intelligence. System planners and industry associations should build on existing workforce forecasting initiatives by developing occupation-specific workforce forecasts that reflect regional and project-level demand and integrating these forecasts into energy system modelling to better anticipate workforce requirements alongside infrastructure planning. Utilities should integrate workforce planning into long-term capital planning by forecasting occupation-specific labour requirements for planned projects, assessing workforce availability and associated risks alongside other project risks, and using these analyses to inform project sequencing, hiring, training, and investment decisions. Together, these actions would enable workforce intelligence to become a routine input into infrastructure planning, improving the sector's ability to anticipate workforce needs and deliver electricity projects with greater confidence and coordination. 31 Statistics Canada, Guide to the Labour Force Survey (Ottawa: Statistics Canada, 2025),
https://www150.statcan.gc.ca/n1/pub/71-543-g/71-543-g2025001-eng.htm; Labour Market Information Council, Labour Market Imbalances: An LMIC Guide (Ottawa: LMIC, 2025), https://lmic-cimt.ca/labour-market-imbalances-guide/. 32 International Energy Agency, World Energy Employment 2025 (Paris: IEA, 2025), https://iea.blob.core.windows.net/assets/e5b9e908-26fe-4228-8978-e4ee36c555ed/WorldEnergyEmployment2025.pdf.
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Building Canada’s electricity workforce: Aligning policy investment, and talent for growth
Regulatory and investment blind spots Workforce readiness is not yet consistently incorporated into project planning and decisionmaking alongside technical feasibility, environmental impacts, and financial viability. While workforce considerations may already form part of project assessments, the depth, consistency, and ability of these assessments to inform workforce development and project planning can vary. 33 At the same time, utilities and other employers may face challenges in making long-term workforce investments within existing regulatory and funding structures. Rate-setting frameworks and project-based funding models are typically designed to support capital investment, with clearer mechanisms for cost recovery on physical assets than on workforce development activities such as training, apprenticeship expansion, or retention initiatives. 34 This can create disincentives for proactive workforce investment, particularly where benefits are realized over longer time horizons or across multiple projects. As electricity systems become more labour-intensive to build and maintain, workforce availability is becoming an increasingly material project delivery risk, alongside supply chain constraints, permitting timelines, and financing. Capital project planning may assess workforce requirements, but these assessments do not always translate into coordinated workforce development action across the employers, unions, post-secondary institutions, and governments responsible for building and supplying the workforce. 35 This can leave gaps between project timelines and the time required to recruit, train, and mobilize workers, increasing the risk of delays, cost escalation, and implementation challenges. 36 These pressures can ultimately affect the cost and timing of electricity infrastructure delivery and, over time, place additional pressure on the cost of electricity for customers. Regulators should build on existing approaches to project planning and approval by recognizing workforce considerations as part of broader project delivery risk assessments. This should include encouraging proponents to assess workforce availability, identify occupation-specific workforce risks, evaluate workforce development timelines, and outline strategies to address labour constraints where relevant to project delivery. The purpose should be to improve visibility into workforce risks and support proactive planning, rather than create additional barriers to project approval. Federal and provincial governments should build on existing investments in electricity infrastructure by supporting workforce development initiatives to ensure projects proceed on schedule. This could include allowing eligible funding for training,
33 International Energy Agency, World Energy Employment 2025 (Paris: IEA, 2025),
https://iea.blob.core.windows.net/assets/e5b9e908-26fe-4228-8978-e4ee36c555ed/WorldEnergyEmployment2025.pdf. 34 Kenneth W. Costello, “Today’s Ratemaking Challenges for Utility Regulators,” Energy Regulation Quarterly, vol. 13, no. 3 (2025), https://energyregulationquarterly.ca/articles/todays-ratemaking-challenges-for-utility-regulators. 35 International Energy Agency, World Energy Outlook 2023 (Paris: IEA, 2023), https://iea.blob.core.windows.net/assets/86ede39e4436-42d7-ba2a-edf61467e070/WorldEnergyOutlook2023.pdf. 36 International Energy Agency, World Energy Employment 2025 (Paris: IEA, 2025), https://iea.blob.core.windows.net/assets/e5b9e908-26fe-4228-8978-e4ee36c555ed/WorldEnergyEmployment2025.pdf.
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Building Canada’s electricity workforce: Aligning policy investment, and talent for growth
apprenticeship expansion, and other workforce development activities where these investments are necessary to support project delivery. Where workforce gaps are identified through project planning, governments should work with utilities, labour organizations, postsecondary institutions, and other workforce partners to help coordinate the investments needed to address those gaps without delaying infrastructure investment decisions. Utilities should integrate workforce planning into long-term capital planning by identifying occupation-specific workforce requirements early in project development and using these assessments to inform project sequencing, hiring, training, and investment decisions. Where significant workforce gaps are identified, utilities should develop workforce plans that outline how required capacity will be built and mobilized over the project timeline. Industry associations should work collaboratively with governments, utilities, regulators, and system planners to improve the identification and communication of workforce needs across major infrastructure projects. This should include developing common approaches to forecasting workforce demand, sharing workforce intelligence across jurisdictions, and identifying emerging labour constraints early enough to inform policy, regulatory, and investment decisions. Embedding workforce readiness into planning and investment decisions, and linking major projects to clear workforce plans, would reduce project delivery risk, improve long-term planning, and strengthen the sector's ability to build and mobilize the workforce needed to deliver critical electricity infrastructure on time and at the scale required.
Time horizon mismatch A further challenge lies in the misalignment of time horizons across planning, training, and funding systems. Electricity infrastructure planning typically operates on long-term timelines, often spanning decades, with investment decisions based on projected demand growth and system needs. In contrast, training pathways such as apprenticeships require multi-year commitments, while post-secondary institutions often operate on shorter funding and program-planning cycles that may not align with long-term infrastructure timelines. 37 At the same time, infrastructure project pipelines can be uneven, with periods of high activity followed by gaps in demand. This variability can make it difficult to sustain continuous employment for skilled trades and technical workers, particularly in regions where project activity is concentrated. 38 During periods of lower activity, workers may leave the sector or relocate, reducing available capacity when demand increases again. These misaligned timelines create challenges in both scaling up and sustaining the workforce. Training systems may not expand quickly enough to meet rising demand, particularly where program capacity, instructor availability, or funding is constrained. Conversely, when demand
37 Electricity Human Resources Canada, Electricity in Demand: Labour Market Insights 2023–2028 (Ottawa: EHRC, 2024),
https://ehrc.ca/wp-content/uploads/2024/05/Electricity-in-Demand-Labour-Market-Insights.pdf. 38 Electricity Human Resources Canada, Electricity in Demand: Labour Market Insights 2023–2028 (Ottawa: EHRC, 2024), https://ehrc.ca/wp-content/uploads/2024/05/Electricity-in-Demand-Labour-Market-Insights.pdf.
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Building Canada’s electricity workforce: Aligning policy investment, and talent for growth
slows, there may be limited mechanisms for retaining workers or maintaining training pipelines, leading to cyclical shortages. Early entry pathways can also help address the time required to build workforce capacity. Several jurisdictions have already introduced approaches that allow young people to begin gaining exposure to occupations and apprenticeship training before completing secondary school. Ontario's Youth Apprenticeship Program (OYAP), for example, enables secondary school students to begin apprenticeship training while completing high school, earn apprenticeship hours and dual credits, and establish earlier pathways into skilled trades. 39 While initiatives such as this demonstrate the value of earlier workforce engagement, similar approaches are not consistently available across Canada or specifically connected to the workforce needs of the electricity sector.
Key recommendations: Governments and system planners should build on existing long-term electricity planning by providing greater multi-year visibility into planned investments in electricity infrastructure. This should include publishing longer-term project pipelines, regularly updating projected timelines and workforce requirements, and communicating anticipated changes in advance to support workforce planning, training investments, and employer hiring decisions. Post-secondary institutions and training providers should use long-term workforce forecasts and emerging skills requirements to inform apprenticeship intake, instructor capacity, and program offerings. This should include maintaining sufficient capacity to respond to projected growth while avoiding abrupt expansions or contractions tied solely to individual project announcements. Utilities and project proponents should coordinate capital planning and project sequencing where feasible to smooth workforce demand over time, reduce periods of peak labour demand followed by inactivity, and improve continuity of employment for skilled workers. Secondary schools, colleges, industry, and governments should strengthen apprenticeship and pre-apprenticeship pathways by building on existing investments in skilled trades and career education. 40 This should include expanding employer partnerships, improving student awareness of electricity careers, strengthening transitions from secondary education into post-secondary programs and apprenticeships, and supporting opportunities for students to gain relevant workplace experience before entering the full-time workforce.
39 Government of Ontario, "Ontario Youth Apprenticeship Program (OYAP).” 40 Natural Resources Canada, Powering Canada Strong: A National Strategy for an Electrified Canadian Economy (Ottawa:
Government of Canada, May 2026).
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Building Canada’s electricity workforce: Aligning policy investment, and talent for growth
Together, these actions would create a more stable workforce pipeline, strengthen workforce continuity, and reduce the risk that workforce shortages or capacity gaps contribute to avoidable project delays and cost pressures as infrastructure needs change over time.
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Building Canada’s electricity workforce: Aligning policy investment, and talent for growth
Conclusion: Mechanisms for durable alignment Workforce capacity is not a downstream outcome of electricity system expansion. It is a foundational constraint that will determine whether Canada can deliver on its electricity ambitions at the scale and speed required. Across the challenges examined in this paper, a consistent pattern emerges. Workforce development, infrastructure planning, approval processes, and investment decisions are not sufficiently aligned. Workforce risks are often identified late in project lifecycles, training systems are not positioned to respond in time, and infrastructure decisions are made without full visibility into workforce feasibility. This is a system-level constraint that is already shaping project timelines, increasing costs, and limiting delivery. Without sufficient skilled labour, projects can be delayed, productivity can be constrained, and additional costs can accumulate across the infrastructure delivery process, with implications for the long-term affordability of electricity for Canadians. Addressing this gap requires a shift in how workforce development is understood and operationalized. Workforce capacity must be treated as enabling infrastructure and integrated into core planning, regulatory, and investment processes. This includes embedding workforce considerations into early-stage infrastructure planning, aligning training systems with projected demand, improving labour mobility and credential pathways, and strengthening workforce data and forecasting. It also requires a durable mechanism for coordination across industry, governments, labour organizations, Indigenous partners, training institutions, and other workforce stakeholders.
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Building Canada’s electricity workforce: Aligning policy investment, and talent for growth
This mechanism should support the identification of shared workforce priorities, the coordination of investments and actions, the monitoring of progress against agreed measures, and the identification of emerging workforce risks as electricity system needs evolve. Industry associations can play a convening role in bringing these perspectives together, while governments, employers, regulators, labour organizations, Indigenous partners, and training institutions retain responsibility for actions within their respective mandates. Progress should be measured through a small set of shared indicators that demonstrate whether workforce capacity is keeping pace with electricity system needs. These could include workforce supply and demand by occupation and region, training and apprenticeship capacity, participation and completion rates, workforce mobility, retention, and the time required to develop workers to full competency. Regular reporting against these indicators would help identify where additional action or investment is required and provide a basis for adjusting priorities over time. Treating workforce development as enabling infrastructure is not simply a response to labour shortages. It is an opportunity to improve investment certainty, reduce avoidable delivery costs, strengthen Canada's ability to deliver critical electricity infrastructure, and build the workforce needed to support electrification, economic growth, and energy security. By better aligning workforce planning with infrastructure planning, Canada can position itself to deliver a reliable, affordable, and increasingly clean electricity system that supports long-term prosperity. The electricity system can only expand as fast as the workforce that builds and operates it. Planning for that workforce is no longer optional. It is a precondition for delivery.
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Building Canada’s electricity workforce: Aligning policy investment, and talent for growth
Appendix A: Roles and responsibilities across the electricity workforce ecosystem No single organization can address Canada's electricity workforce challenges alone. The responsibilities below are complementary and intended to illustrate how coordinated action across the workforce ecosystem can strengthen long-term workforce capacity. Actor
Calls to action
Relevant report sections
Recognize workforce development as enabling infrastructure within federal energy and infrastructure policy. Support workforce development through investments in training, work-integrated learning, apprenticeship supports, modular and lifelong learning, and instructor capacity.
Federal Government
Improve labour market intelligence by supporting consistent workforce definitions, data standards, forecasting methodologies, and data sharing across jurisdictions, including for emerging occupations. Continue supporting credential recognition and labour mobility initiatives that help unlock existing workforce capacity across Canada.
Workforce as enabling infrastructure; Labour mobility; Labour market intelligence; Regulatory and investment blind spots
Support workforce development measures that help address identified workforce gaps and enable timely infrastructure delivery. Align education, apprenticeship, workforce development investments, and infrastructure planning with projected regional electricity demand and workforce development timelines. Improve transparency and consistency of credential recognition, licensing, and labour mobility processes while maintaining safety and competency standards. Provincial and Territorial Governments
Expand flexible funding models that support modular, parttime, employer-supported, and lifelong learning, including instructor capacity.
Labour mobility; Workintegrated learning; Midcareer learning; Time horizon mismatch
Support work-integrated learning through employer incentives and funding models that address supervisory and participation barriers. Strengthen secondary school apprenticeship and preapprenticeship pathways.
Regulators
Recognize workforce considerations as part of broader project delivery risk assessments. Encourage proponents to assess workforce availability, identify occupation-specific workforce risks, evaluate workforce
Regulatory and investment blind spots; Workforce as enabling infrastructure
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Building Canada’s electricity workforce: Aligning policy investment, and talent for growth
development timelines, and outline strategies to address labour constraints where relevant to project delivery. Use workforce considerations to improve visibility and proactive planning, rather than create additional barriers to project approval. Integrate workforce planning into long-term capital planning and project development by forecasting occupation-specific workforce requirements, assessing workforce availability and risks, and identifying workforce development needs from the earliest stages.
Utilities and project developers
Strengthen succession planning, knowledge transfer, retention, and career development strategies, including identifying critical non-executive roles and internal talent that could be developed into high-need roles. Expand work-integrated learning, apprenticeship, mentorship, and workplace transition opportunities, including flexible or shared models where appropriate.
Workforce as enabling infrastructure; Retention; Technology; Workintegrated learning; Time horizon mismatch
Collaborate on project sequencing and capital planning, where feasible, to smooth workforce demand and improve continuity of employment. Participate directly in curriculum advisory partnerships and communicate evolving technical competencies and skill requirements to post-secondary institutions. Align enrolment, apprenticeship intake, instructor capacity, and program offerings with projected workforce demand and emerging skills requirements. Establish ongoing curriculum advisory partnerships with utilities and other electricity sector employers and modernize curriculum to reflect emerging technologies and evolving occupational requirements. Post-secondary Institutions and training providers
Expand competency-based, modular, stackable, and lifelong learning opportunities that support workers to upskill while remaining employed. Increase work-integrated learning opportunities and strengthen collaboration with industry by aligning placement models with operational needs.
Technology acceleration; Work-integrated learning; Mid-career learning; Time horizon mismatch
Support instructor-industry exchanges, professional development, and utility placements to ensure teaching reflects current operational practices. Strengthen recognition of prior learning and competency recognition to reduce unnecessary duplication.
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Building Canada’s electricity workforce: Aligning policy investment, and talent for growth
Support apprenticeship, mentorship, workforce transition, and continuous skills development initiatives.
Labour organizations
Collaborate on labour mobility, credential recognition, workforce planning, and curriculum development. Work with employers to strengthen knowledge transfer, retention, and career development.
Retention; Labour mobility; Work-integrated learning; Mid-career learning; Time horizon mismatch
Participate in standing curriculum and workforce planning partnerships to help identify emerging skills needs. Convene collaboration across governments, utilities, educators, labour organizations, Indigenous partners, and other workforce stakeholders. Improve workforce intelligence by coordinating data, supporting common definitions and forecasting approaches, sharing leading practices, and identifying labour mobility barriers. Industry associations
Support development of occupation-specific workforce forecasts and integration of workforce requirements into broader infrastructure and energy system planning.
Labour market intelligence; Workforce as enabling infrastructure; Time horizon mismatch
Identify emerging workforce issues and communicate sectorwide priorities. Support coordinated workforce strategies and facilitate ongoing dialogue across the electricity ecosystem. Co-develop workforce strategies that reflect Indigenous priorities, rights, and community needs. Indigenous partners
Expand pathways into electricity careers through education, training, apprenticeships, and long-term employment partnerships.
Work-integrated learning; Workforce as enabling infrastructure
Participate in regional workforce planning to help ensure electricity investments create lasting community benefits.
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Building Canada’s electricity workforce: Aligning policy investment, and talent for growth
Appendix B: Participants in the Energizing Talent Conversation Series Ahmed Maria, Independent Electricity System Operator
Mark Chapeskie, Electricity Human Resources Canada
Dr. Ala Al Robiaee, George Brown Polytechnic
Marwa Selim, Women in Renewable Energy (WiRE)
Alex Callahan, The Canadian Labour Congress
Dr. Monica Gattinger, Positive Energy at The University of Ottawa
Brandon Dyck, International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers
Natasha Honey, Electricity Canada
Brittany Botting, Electricity Canada Channa Perera, Electricity Canada Assistant Deputy Minister Colette Kaminsky, Employment and Social Development Canada Dario Guescini, Seneca Polytechnic Deborah Antenore, Hydro One Eileen De Courcy, Yorkville University Jessie Cooke, Universities Canada Joanna Osawe, Women in Renewable Energy (WiRE) Katie Cosway, Ontario Power Generation Kendra Flagler, Ontario Power Generation
Minister Nolan Quinn, Ontario Ministry of Colleges, Universities, Research Excellence, and Security Osh Irumhekha, Hydro One Sabrin Lila, Hydro One Sarah Strapps, Employment and Social Development Canada Dr. Shatha Qaqish-Clavering, Lawson Climate Institute Shaun Thorson, Skills Canada Travis Merrett, International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers Dr. Wendy Cukier, The Diversity Institute at Toronto Metropolitan University Yoana Turnin, Electricity Human Resources Canada
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