Posted on 06/03/2013 1:54:06 PM PDT by posterchild
Sales of new homes are on a tear, but builders can't find enough workers to keep up with the demand.
After the housing bust, many workers left the building trade in droves, said Michael Fink, CEO of Leewood Real Estate Group in Trenton, N.J.
"A lot of our workers are immigrants and they went back to their home countries," he said. "Our subcontractors can't get people; they can't start on time; they can't get things done on time."
The National Association of Home Builders (NAHB) reported in March that 46% of its members say they have fallen behind schedule on finishing projects, 15% turned down jobs and 9% lost or canceled sales because they can't find enough workers.
That could have some big ramifications for the broader housing market. Housing starts fell sharply in April to 853,000 and experts project residential construction will grow by about 25% annually, according to the NAHB. At that pace, it could take more than four years to get back to early 2006 building levels, when housing starts peaked at 2.3 million, according to Census Bureau data.
(Excerpt) Read more at money.cnn.com ...
You get the same bleating from the agriculture business when crop picking time comes around. There are new homes being built, but the most successful are the high end builders who maintained a competent work force. Jack Leg shysters who THINK they’re builders are crying because they can’t get back in on it soon enough.
I'd like to see the official documentation on that.......
They even import illegal aliens into Hawaii, apparently for home construction and all the other" jobs Americans won't do." We started seeing gang graffiti all over the place last few trips back there.
Me neither, and since the engineered crash I’ve gone back to construction.
A real problem with Construction jobs is not the steel toed boots, or the wages, but the requirement for a drug test. This tends to weed out most of the Governmentaly supported.
Same goes for agriculture. There are no "jobs Americans won't do"...they just expect to be paid better than an illegal scumbag alien.
Scouts Out! Cavalry Ho!
I really do enjoy my job. 25 years in HVAC. Retrofits, residential, commercial and industrial. Though still ‘’out in the field’’, and doing the grunt work...in heat, cold, rain, snow, you name it. I am EPA licensed (what a crock) and can not only size nearly any system and fabricate both sheetmetal and fiberglass ducts. What frosts me is when someone who couldn’t find his arse with both hands, a map, a searchlight, guide dog and three equally moronic helpers tries to tell me that what I am doing isn’t what would ‘’look best’’.
It’s supposed to work best and most efficiently, not ‘’aesthetically pleasing’’.
Supply and demand, raise your pay.
Tell me about that EPA licensing. It’s a total crock, no?
Just another means for government to siphon money from your pockets.
Besides, the ‘’test’’ is hardly rocket science. Might as well be open book. For dealing with a day of BS, you get the ‘’privilege’’ of legally handling and purchasing CFCs. Wow!
The electrical licensing exam is the same. It doesn’t test your ability to pipe or wire correctly. Instead it tests if you know what page of the codebook each issue is found on.
-——but builders can’t find enough workers to keep up with the demand-——
They exworkers are all disabled...... or at least on disability.
They don’t address the fact that code enforcement officials don’t always follow the codes, either from willful dismissal of the written codes or ignorance and an inability to comprehend English.
They also don’t address the continual improvements in the various trades and are blind to the obvious. Government drones know much more than trained engineers, donchaknow.
Completely agree. No inspection is every going to catch everything. You can fake a lot and they only know what they focus on. From jurisdiction to jurisdiction the focuses vary and what one inspector cares about I’ve seen another completely sign off on.
You’re spot on when it comes to innovations. Government stamps them down and treats them with suspicion, despite obvious improvements.
In Chicago, by law, we must use copper supply for water. Despite high prices, etc., and the fact that other states allow PEX. Do they hate their citizens? It’s nuts and I believe the free market can solve most code problems.
Things don’t change that much. Plus, if it were wider open people would have to check harder and they’d be less likely to let some illegal do their work just because the boss is ‘licensed and bonded’.
My final inspector is me. I will not do what I won’t for myself. My name is signed and dated on every installation. I abhor half-a**ed installs. I take each one as a legacy, of sorts. Those who can, do; those who cannot, supervise...or inspect.
As for why Chicagoland requires copper......kickbacks? Pex, wirsbo, any other number of nearly perpetual water conduits save time, resources, money and future headaches. Eventually, they will develope a viable and inexpensive alternative to copper linesets. As long as pinheads don’t kill the innovators in uterus.
Absolutely...Contractors are some of the most corrupt employers on the planet and will hire low wage illegals whenever possible...They all but destroyed construction as a well paying industry.
I’ve had many formally from that industry, tell me exactly what the contractors did, and how once they got a taste of dirt cheap illegal labor, that was it for the industry.
Same here. I tell my customers that I build it like I would for my self, my family or my dearest friend. Have a good one.
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