Built to Carry the Load: What Canada's Building Trades Report Says About Mental Health on the Job
Tradespeople build the roads we drive, the hospitals we trust, and the homes where we raise our families. Many of them are also carrying something heavier than anything on the job site.
In September 2025, Canada's Building Trades Unions (CBTU) released one of the most detailed looks yet at mental health and substance use in the skilled trades. The report, prepared by the Douglas Coldwell Layton Foundation,
surveyed more than 1,000 members of a union family representing 600,000 workers across more than 60 trades. Its findings matter to every worker, family and employer in the industry, especially here in Alberta, where construction and energy work shape so many lives.
What the report found
Nearly half of the tradespeople surveyed describe their mental health as fair (29%) or poor (17%). The challenges they named most often:
Stress: 77%
Anxiety: 62%
Burnout: 50%
Depression: 45%
Insomnia: 38%
Work plays a direct role. Among workers who report poor mental health, 62% say their job significantly affects it. One in four use substances daily or weekly to cope. The report also connects job-related physical pain with both substance use and difficulty reaching support.
The gap that matters most
One number stays with us: 84% of members believe their union offers the mental health support they need, yet only 10% have used it.
The support exists. Something stands between people and that support, and the report names it plainly: stigma.
That gap is familiar to anyone who has worked in a culture built on toughness. When your reputation rests on being reliable, strong, and the person others lean on, asking for help can feel like risking everything you have built.
Why the trades carry it differently
Much of the wellness advice out there was written for office life. Tradespeople often work through realities it was never designed for:
Physical strain and ongoing pain that wear down mood and sleep
Long shifts, early starts, and seasonal or rotational schedules
Weeks away from home on remote projects
Uncertainty between contracts
Crews where vulnerability rarely enters the conversation
These are not personal failings. They are the conditions of the work. When the body and nervous system stay under steady pressure for years, stress, irritability, broken sleep and numbing out can start to feel normal.
Real strength to build on
The report also found something encouraging. Tradespeople feel more supported by their trades community than workers in other sectors do. That sense of belonging is a powerful foundation.
In response to the findings, CBTU formed a national Mental Health and Substance Use Committee with representatives from across its affiliated unions. The report recommends:
Raising awareness of existing mental health and addiction programs
Working with employers to reduce workplace injuries and ergonomic strain
Nurturing belonging so more workers feel safe reaching out
Recognizing physical pain in the trades and encouraging medical care
What this means for employers
For construction and trades employers, the lesson is clear: offering support is the start, and helping people feel safe using it is the real work. A few practices make a meaningful difference:
Talk about mental health at toolbox talks and safety meetings, the same way you talk about physical safety
Make sure every crew knows what support exists and how to reach it privately
Take physical pain seriously, because it is often where mental strain begins
Give foremen and site leaders simple language for checking in with their people
Offer options outside the workplace for those who want complete privacy
Vita partners with Alberta organizations to bring this kind of support to their teams through our corporate wellness programs.
Where private support fits
For many tradespeople, the hardest part is not knowing that support exists. It is walking through a door where someone they know might see them. Privacy matters.
Vita offers fully private, one-on-one mental health programs in Alberta, from 4 to 14 days. Each program is shaped around the person, whether they are carrying stress, burnout, anxiety, depression, grief, trauma or nervous system overload. Our team of counsellors, social workers and mental health clinicians works alongside integrative health and somatic practitioners, because the body and mind carry strain together.
A Vita program is not a replacement for your union's resources or your doctor. It is another path: a confidential space to step away, settle your nervous system, and return with tools that work on the site and at home. If substances have become part of how you get through the week, your union's program, your doctor or a dedicated addiction service can walk with you alongside any other support.
You have spent your career building things that last. You deserve support that lasts too.
How to begin
Starting is simple and confidential:
Complete our private Pre-intake form.
Book an optional confidential consultation call.
Receive your personalized program recommendation.
Attend your program.
If you are in crisis or thinking about suicide, call or text 9-8-8, Canada's suicide crisis helpline, any time of day.
Source: Canada's Building Trades Unions, Mental Health and Substance Use report, September 2025.
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