Page 7 - GB Building Science Ebook 2019

BACK STORY: THE LABOR SHORTAGE

WHERE A CLOSE LOOK AT

UNFILLED JOBS
DID ALL THROWS LIGHT ON

THE NEGATIVE
THE GOOD IMPACTS OF ANTI-

IMMIGRANT RHETORIC
HELP GO? Constuction Total Diploma Immigrants

No HS
Occupation
Share
The construction industry, General Laborer 1,849,815 30.7% 34.1%

by some estimates, has 40 Carpenters 1,097,577 25.2% 27.6%

Painters/
percent fewer workers than it Paperhangers 575,490 36.7% 42.6%
needs, given current demand. Roofers 237,133 45.6% 43.5%

Drywall Installers 152,939 43.3% 49.2%
HERE’S PLENTY OF BLAME to go around for the lack of Carpet/Tile
construction laborers. First, there was the building boom, Installers 152,658 37.3% 41.0%
followed by the recession. According to the NAHB, about SOURCE: NAHB (2013)
1.5 million workers left the industry between 2007 and Stucco Masons 36,339 47.3% 59.0%
T2009, and many never came back.
Housing starts (both single and multi-family) have picked up to Immigrants Matter. Is it any wonder that general contractors are
a pace of 1.2 million a month, more than twice as many as at their having trouble keeping homes on track, when many in the
workforce are being terrorized by anti-immigrant politics?
trough in April 2009. HOWEVER, the number of nonsupervisory
workers in residential construction has increased by only 40 percent
since 2011. Skilled trades, immigrant and otherwise, also have become scarce.
The increasingly hostile rhetoric toward foreign nationals According to The Washington Post, “the global staffing firm Manpower
(backed up with enthusiasm by ICE) has sent a massive chill Group reported that skilled trade vacancies are the hardest jobs to
through immigrant communities. While it’s hard to quantify the fill in the country. Skilled trades (electricians, carpenters, welders,
exact extent of the reduced labor availability, you can see from bricklayers, plasterers, plumbers, masons and more) have maintained
the chart how reliant the construction industry is on this pool the No. 1 position in vacancies from 2010 to the present.”
of laborers. They make up nearly half of the workforce in many According to the Dallas HBA, the labor shortage has added $6000
building trades. to the cost of a new home, due primarily to delays in completion.
The immigrant labor issue is a complex one. The LA Times, for Given this scenario, reducing the overall need for labor has become
example asserts that the whole reason immigrant labor became an important goal to those companies that survived the last recession.
so important in homebuilding was because contractors and their This has loosened the normally conservative approach to building.
corporate clients worked hard to undercut unionized labor for 10 Products such as Structural Insulated Panels (SIPs), Insulated
years—and immigrants rushed in to fill the gap at a lower cost per hour. Concrete Forms (ICFs), and less known panelized systems are getting
The reality of course is that many immigrants--legal and otherwise- a long overdue second look. They have the added benefit of mighty
-such as tile setters and roofers, offer extreme proficiency at low strength and durability in extreme weather scenarios, a growing
cost. They’ve been the backbone of the building industry, especially concern in some of the fastest growing regions.
in the Southwest, for more than a decade. They keep the building With labor scarce, solar ascendant, and codes changing, let’s dive
timeline on track, meeting or exceeding project deadlines, and into Six Ways Construction is Changing. We begin with labor-saving
increase builder profits. alternative structural systems. GB

BUILDING SCIENCE SPECIAL REPORT: SIX WAYS CONSTRUCTION IS CHANGING 7