Survey: Construction companies need workers

North Carolina construction companies are having a harder time filling salaried field positions and hourly craft position than the nation, on average, according to a workforce survey by the Associated General Contractors of America.

The AGC held a call with media representatives from around the country on Wednesday to highlight the difficulties facing the construction industry: Many workers who left the field during the recession have not returned; the workforce is aging and a large share will be retiring in the coming years; people in their teens and twenties are encouraged to go to college rather than work in a field such as construction; and there aren’t enough training programs to adequately prepare young workers for the more technology-reliant positions in the industry.

“With the construction industry in most of the country now several years into a recovery, many firms have gone from worrying about not having enough work to not having enough workers,” said Stephen Sandherr, AGC chief executive officer. “These shortages have the potential to undermine broader economic growth by forcing contractors to slow scheduled work or choose not to bid on projects, thereby inflating the cost of construction.”

Tight labor market conditions are prompting nearly half of construction firms to increase base pay rates for craft workers because of the difficulty in filling positions. Twenty-two percent have improved employee benefits for craft workers and 20 percent report they are providing incentives and bonuses to attract workers.

Forty-seven percent of N.C. firms said they were having a hard time filling some salaried field positions, versus 38 percent of companies nationally. In that category, finding project managers and supervisors has proven difficult for 61 percent of N.C. companies, versus 50 percent of companies nationally.

Eighty-four percent of companies in the state said they were having a hard time filling craft positions, compared with 69 percent of companies nationally. One hundred percent of North Carolina companies said they were having trouble finding pipefitters and welders, while only 41 percent of companies nationally shared that challenge. Carpenters were the second most difficult workers to find in N.C., with 85 percent of companies saying it was a hard position to fill. Nationally, carpenters ranked first in scarcity, with 60 percent of companies saying that had trouble finding them.

The AGC called on federal, state and local officials to take actions such as reforming and increasing funding for the 2006 Perkins Career and Technical Education Act that was designed to improve such education; enacting immigration reform; and making it easier to set up charter schools and career academies that teach construction skills.