Spending on construction in Yukon so far this year has jumped more than $30 million compared to the same time last year.
That’s mostly thanks to work being done to expand Whitehorse General Hospital.
Statistics Canada released its building permits data for January to May 2016. Those numbers track the value of construction work done over that period.
In the first five months of 2016, $60.2 million worth of construction was done in the territory. That’s compared to only $26.4 million during the same period last year.
The biggest jump came in non-residential construction where the number ballooned from $13 million to $43.8 million.
About $20 million was spent on the hospital expansion during that time period, said Gary Brown with the Yukon Bureau of Statistics. Work had also begun on the new Salvation Army building.
“That’s the biggest part of the increase and obviously (in) a smaller jurisdiction like this, when these big projects come through, we see massive fluctuations.”
Similar spikes have occurred during the construction of projects like the Whitehorse Correctional Centre, the new F.H. Collins Secondary School and the Canada Games Centre, he said.
The value of residential construction was also up slightly to $16.4 million from $13.4 million.