Construction Forecast Issue Home

March 30, 2000

Where have all the workers gone?

Contractors beef up recruiting tactics and add benefits to attract employees during a labor shortage.

By SEAN ROBINSON
Special to the Journal

Throughout the Puget Sound construction industry, a troubling question echoes: Where have all the workers gone?

Lured by the promise of high-tech jobs and dismayed by the apparent rigors of working conditions, young people who once would have opted for careers in construction are going elsewhere.

Coupled with a booming construction market, the labor drain has contractors and builders scrambling to compensate. Aggressive marketing, increased wages, more attractive benefit packages and greater recruitment of women and minorities are among the strategies they employ, but it’s an uphill battle.

"It’s a really big problem and nobody has an answer," said Kathleen Garrity, executive director of Associated Builders and Contractors. "In a normal economy it would be significant. In an economy like we’re having, where both the public and private sectors are really busy - and that’s an understatement - it’s become an enormous problem."

Garrity and other industry experts say the average age of local construction workers hovers in the 40s - some say it’s as high as 50. The stream of apprentices and skilled tradespeople expected to inherit those jobs has slowed to a trickle.

"Yes, what’s happening is the craftspeople are aging and there’s not enough young people who are coming into the trades," said John Schaufelberger, graduate program coordinator of the University of Washington’s construction management department. "This has probably been recognized by the leaders of the construction management industry as the number one construction management issue in the United States."

Early last year, Schaufelberger conducted a survey of high school students and vocational counselors across the state to determine how the construction industry was perceived. The answer: negatively, or not at all.

According to the survey, more than half of the students and counselors did not know how to enter the construction trades, and did not understand apprenticeship programs. They had little sense of the salary scale, and their impressions of the work were unfavorable.

"They don’t understand what it’s about," he said. "All they see is that it’s a dirty trade. And it’s not just in construction. It’s the whole blue-collar sector. The notion that one can be that type of a craftsperson and be very successful in life has to be restored. With this information age, people want to do things with a computer. Unfortunately, everything isn’t computer-driven."

Ironically, the current hot economy and accompanying demand for construction projects draws much of its momentum from growth in high-tech industries. Dot-com companies are building even as the labor force that erects their headquarters and offices ages and shrinks.

The problem stems in part from what Garrity calls "the cultural devaluing of working with your hands," along with a gradual shift away from vocational education in high schools. Schaufelberger agrees, and adds that the industry has done a poor job of attracting women to available jobs.

The shortage of new workers puts added pressure on construction companies to retain their current employees. Garrity is seeing benefits such as 401(k) plans become more common, and an increased willingness to recruit from the newer populations of Russian and Hispanic immigrants, despite the obstacles presented by language barriers.

Aggressive recruiting raids among rival companies have become more common.

Such intrigues by nature have more impact on "open" firms that hire outside the sphere of union influence, but companies that hire predominantly union workers are not immune.

"As a practical matter, what that means is that it’s very difficult, if not impossible, to get people off the bench," said Bill Lewis, president of Lease Crutcher Lewis, a Seattle-based contractor. "The climate is in the laborer’s favor. There’s a huge upward pressure on getting good workers.

There’s fierce competition for qualified people at all levels, including entry-level."

Chris Clark, chairman of W.G. Clark Construction, believes the worst of the shortage may be over, but he agrees that finding new people is becoming more difficult. The key strategy he cites for retaining current employees is regular promotion and sensitivity to continued growth opportunities for individuals.

"That’s really what people want, is to see progress on their career path," he said. "More responsibility, the chance to have a greater job description and from there, the compensation that goes with it. These are not the times when an employer can take employees for granted."

The pressure for new blood manifests itself at the University of Washington, where students of Schaufelberger’s construction management program are being recruited more heavily. In the past, graduates could expect one or two offers. Now they receive five or six, according to Schaufelberger. The number of firms making presentations at annual career days has doubled.

However, most observers agree that the demand for construction management, while increased, is not as great as the need for tradespeople, such as carpenters, plumbers and electricians.

"There’s a general tight supply out there, no question," said Clark.

In response, the industry is stepping up its marketing efforts, embarking on a promotional campaign to give construction a greater presence in schools.

Bob Jayne, a construction consultant and leader of the ABC’s construction advisory commission, has spent the last five years as a vocational-technical advisor to five of the state’s largest school districts in the Seattle area.

"The mission is to get kids interested in careers in construction," he said.

"It’s proved a lot more difficult than anybody would expect, considering the demand for people. In large part, young people are not interested in careers in construction. They’re swayed by a lot of glamor industries out there.

"A lot of the career counselors and vocational counselors were not aware of what the construction industry provided in the way of income benefits, and they were misquoting the wages construction workers do make," Jayne added. "One of the things we’re doing with the school districts right now is trying to set them up with new information."

As much as informing potential workers about wages and compensation, industry observers sense a deeper struggle to overcome cultural attitudes toward construction. Old-timers like John Blincoe lament what they see as society’s loss of pride in an honorable trade.

He can’t imagine a computer programmer getting the same sense of fulfillment that a builder feels when a project is completed. Young people need to hear that, he argues.

"It’s a sense of accomplishment," he said. "When I was in the fourth grade I used to be out in the drainage ditches building dams. That led to my interest in going into becoming a civil engineer and getting into the construction business. You have to get their imagination at an early age, and show them that it’s not a dirty business, that it’s a real challenging business."