Posted on 09/14/2015 6:23:51 AM PDT by thackney
More than 80 percent of construction companies are having a hard time finding qualified workers, according to a survey of 1,386 companies by Associated General Contractors of America. Carpenters, sheet metal installers and concrete workers are in especially short supply, but construction companies also are having difficulty filling salaried positions such as project managers, estimators and engineers.
These jobs pay well: The mean average wage for carpenters in the U.S. last year was $45,590; sheet metal installers made an average of $48,700, and cement masons and concrete finishers made made an average of $40,970. Construction managers made an average of $94,500. Average wages for these occupations are probably higher this year, because contractors report they’re paying more for construction workers because they’re in such short supply.
You can find comprehensive data on what people earn for various occupations, including localized numbers for 106 major markets across the U.S., at American City Business Journals' “What People Earn” database.
(FYI, reporters make about the same amount of money as carpenters, and editors make $30,000 less than construction managers — too bad I’m not handy at all.) Half of the construction company executives surveyed said their local pipeline for construction workers is below-average or poor.
“That’s a pretty severe indictment of the quality of the pipeline for our industry,” said Stephen Sandherr, CEO of AGC.
"The sad fact is too few students are being exposed to construction careers or provided with the basic skills needed to prepare for such a career path,” he said.
To address this issue, AGC recommends increased funding for career and technical education, the establishment of construction academy charter schools, antitrust exemptions so that non-union contractors can jointly fund craft training programs, and expanded partnerships between apprenticeship programs and community colleges. In the meantime, construction companies are paying workers more in order to attract and keep them, and increasing their use of subcontractors and staffing companies, the survey found.
This is driving up the cost of construction projects, contractors report.
The Wontdo nuffins are too busy spending welfare checks to work.
I imagine a lot of those aborted babies would have grown to be great construction workers...etc etc
I thought the Mexicans were coming here to work.
No?
The federal government is paying able bodied people to NOT work.
Just another reason to hire illegals and push Comprehensive Immigration Reform....Ugh.
Yep, welfare has become significant competition to the job market.
In Houston? Won’t that soon not be a problem?
Houston is like a snake or a chicken with its head cut off and doesn’t know it is dead until the next boom comes.
It is a mixed bag in Houston.
Lots of layoffs associated with Upstream. Business is pretty decent downstream and lots of petrochem expansions.
Davis Bacon & mandatory union membership have nothing to do with driving up costs...yeah, right.
Sure if you want a crappy job done. I am tired of calling a company and having them send someone who doesn’t, or pretends he doesn’t, speak English and does a substandard job.
They are competing with government, which pays to keep 90 million adult Americans out of the workforce
How can this be, with all those collecting foodstamps, etc. in the cities?
If you want to make good money in the trades, become a bridge welder. They are in huge demand.
Many of these projects are in right-to-work states like Texas.
Well, when you replace legal workers with underpaid illegals, eventually legals will stop going into the profession. Maybe that doesn’t apply here, but we’ve seen the whining about shortages before.
I would recommend ASME certification over a just structural welding.
http://www.mcaa.org/ncpwb/pw9pdf.pdf
I ran two nearly identical projects at the same time (start date, anyway). One was in New York City, one in Charleston, SC. I had a crew of 5 in SC, 18 in NYC. The Charleston job took 4 months, the NYC job closer to 9 months. FIVE TIMES the total cost in NYC. The only real difference: Unions in NYC, non-union in SC. Oh, zero defects from the non-union boys, too.
That, and having your own truck/company.
We have jobs from Dallas to Miami to Philly that getting qualified welders for is a constant difficulty.
How big a problem is passing the drug test for getting welders?
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