One more sign that the market is coming back from the Great Recession: There aren’t enough construction workers to fill all the jobs.
At one point in the construction on the new Atlanta Falcons stadium, plans called for 450 carpenters, and employers could only get 250, according to Mike Dunham, CEO at Associated General Contractors of Georgia, an industry organization.
With Atlanta’s two big stadium projects, plus the housing market bouncing back, he said there aren’t enough skilled workers.
“We’re suffering from the baby boomers leaving the industry and not finding enough people entering the industry,” he said. “You certainly can’t become an electrician, or you don’t become a carpenter, and you can’t become a plumber without some formal training and the opportunity to get that experience.”
On top of the generational shift, many people left the industry during the Great Recession, and they haven’t come back, he said.
The Associated General Contractors of America, the parent of Dunham’s organization, released a survey Thursday finding that nationwide, 86 percent of the contractors surveyed had trouble filling positions. Half of them rated local training for craft workers like carpenters or electricians as either poor or below average.
“Considering how much the nation’s educational focus has moved away from teaching career and technical skills in the last few decades, it is easy to understand why contractors have such a low opinion of the local pipeline and are facing such severe labor shortages,” said Stephen Sandherr, CEO of Associated General Contractors of America.
The survey found that firms are now paying higher wages and relying more on subcontractors and staffing companies.
The AGC recommended that parents and schools encourage young people to consider careers in construction.
“It is a problem, it is a challenge, but it’s a better, more desirable challenge to have than when the market was in a big freefall during the recession,” said Dunham.
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