A skilled labor shortage is forcing housing contractors to go to unusual lengths to make up for the absence of workers. This, in some cases, is leading to foregone revenue and sales, as not enough people can be found to fill open positions to help meet the demand for houses.
There are now more jobs available in the U.S. than there are people unemployed, according to newly released data from the U.S. Department of Labor. And the imbalance is particularly dire in the housing industry where even during economic downturns unemployment historically has run low.
One Midwestern site builder said he’s currently paying typical overtime wages for the first 40 hours to most of his 40 employees to make up for the lack of available workers, but even that is not enough.
“Today I was out unloading a truck,” he said. “Not that it’s beneath me, but there are better things I could be doing with my time.”
Construction companies say it’s hard to find people who are qualified to work in non-skilled labor positions and many are partnering with schools to try to build interest with kids. With the manufacturing sector on the rise, fewer people are going into the skilled construction fields.
“We do not have enough employees to hire that actually have working knowledge of how to build things, how to pour concrete, how to run equipment, and different things like that,” said one southern home builder. “We have applicants come in every day, but they don’t know how to do anything with their hands, and so we end up hiring people that we have to train before they actually become beneficial members of our crews.”
But there’s another problem facing the current construction workforce. Employees that have been on the job thirty to forty years. They’re getting older, and they’re getting ready to retire and replacing them is getting next to impossible.
Although students typically show interest in the trades during their high school years, that can change once they graduate. Working with their hands out in the weather year round is not what they want to do the rest of their lives.
“We, the parents, have been telling our children that doing manual labor is something beneath their ability” said a NJ site builder. “Now we have a generation that looks down on anyone that works with their hands. At the same time, we the parents, are seeing our children struggling to repay student loans, get married, buy houses and new cars while those kids that are actually working with their hands are making $50,000 a year and more.”
The labor shortage problem is not unique to site built housing. Every industry is facing an increasing demand to hire employees.
I’ve even heard some builders are reaching out to retirees, offering them 20-24 hours a week to do many non-hands on jobs at the construction sites such a driving for materials, meeting with code inspection people, office work and even as job foreman. These retirees are being paid enough an hour to make it quite worthwhile to forego their social security for a couple of years.
