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Construction employment dips in March but wages move up; reports vary on cost trendsEditor’s note: Construction Citizen is proud to partner with AGC America to bring you AGC Chief Economist Ken Simonson's Data DIGest. Check back each week to get Ken's expert analysis of what's happening in our industry.Click here to register for a free 4/30 webcast "Will Construction Pick Up the Pace or the Pieces?" presented by AGC/AIA/CMD.Nonfarm payroll employment increased by 126,000 in March, seasonally adjusted, and by 3,128,000 (2.3%) over 12 months, the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) reported on Friday. Construction employment dipped by 1,000 for the month but increased by 282,000 (4.7%) over the year to 6,344,000. Residential construction employment (residential building and specialty trade contractors) dropped by 2,800 for the month but rose 136,300 (6.0%) over 12 months. Nonresidential employment (building, specialty trades, and heavy and civil engineering construction) increased by 1,100 in March and 145,000 (3.8%) year-over-year.
Reshaping the Construction Industry
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With the skills gap widening and projecting to increase, Construction and Maintenance Education Foundation (CMEF) will open up a new doorway for veterans to enter a career in construction, providing training for free.CMEF will be offering a free jumpstart training course for veterans at Camp Hope in the beginning of summer 2015. This course will provide a Heavy Equipment Operators (HEO) certification. Director of Education Glen O’Mary said the demand for an equipment operator will make the certification more valuable, making it easier for veterans to begin their career in the construction industry. O’Mary, a veteran himself, said training in the military is very similar for training on the jobsite. There are parallels, he described, in the continuation of education and training, safety, procedures, hours and overall work.
April 09, 2015
Worker misclassification undercuts ethical employers, allows deadbeat dads to avoid child support, at times provides wages for illegal immigrants, and often contributes to hardworking laborors going underpaid, yet TX lawmakers are largely doing nothing about it.
April 08, 2015
I know you are like me. You see climbing cranes on a high-rise building under construction and the cranes are lifting everything that goes into the building from structural steel to glass, studs, drywall, flooring, fixtures and furnishings. Somewhere in the back of your mind is the nagging question - “Okay, the building is topped out and generally finished; how are they going to get the cranes down?” If you are an architect like me, you still are amazed that the contractors and those fearless ironworkers can even get them up there, much less get them down.
April 07, 2015
The following article was authored by Matthew Waller.Tracy Kyzer’s company gave him a ride back home. He had been given a company vehicle, and that was going away. His employers had given him time to clean out his desk.In early March, Kyzer, 51, was let go from oil and gas company Schlumberger in Midland, joining thousands who have lost jobs in the Texas energy sector.His wife is still working with an oil company.“After I hang up the phone with you, she may not be,” Kyzer said on a call.Across the state capital investments are being cut, as the price of oil has plummeted more than 50 percent from its $100 highs last summer.
April 06, 2015
When architectural designs hit Popular Mechanics Magazine, I know that they must be amazing. Robin would certainly have said Holy Smokes or some equally pithy comment to Batman about the Shanghai Tower and its massive, and I mean massive, “Tuned Mass Damper” or “Harmonic Absorber.”The stats about the building are as large as the building itself. Designed by the Gensler team and built by the Shanghai Construction Group, the finished building stands 632 meters into the air over Shanghai. For those of you not into metrics, that is 2,073 feet five and 57/64 inches tall, second only to the Burj Khalifa tower. The point that attracted Popular Mechanics to the building was the 5 story tall 1,000 plus ton Tuned Mass Damper designed to reduce the sway of the tower for its occupants.
April 03, 2015
Construction spending flattens in February; employment rises in most states, metrosEditor’s note: Construction Citizen is proud to partner with AGC America to bring you AGC Chief Economist Ken Simonson's Data DIGest. Check back each week to get Ken's expert analysis of what's happening in our industry.Construction spending in February totaled $967 billion at a seasonally adjusted annual rate, down less than 0.1% from the rate in January, but up 2.1% from February 2014, the Census Bureau reported on Wednesday. Because unseasonably mild or severe weather can distort monthly comparisons in winter, it is more revealing to compare year-to-date figures for January and February combined. On that basis, total spending increased 2.0% from the same months of 2014, private residential spending slipped 1.0%, private nonresidential spending increased 4.3% and public construction spending gained 2.6%.
April 03, 2015
Last week a group of construction professionals from MAREK once again volunteered their time to instruct high school students in drywall installation at their new state-of-the-art Pasadena Independent School District facility. Houston area construction firms such as MAREK have partnered with Pasadena ISD in the past to enhance the programs offered to students looking for careers in construction.
April 02, 2015
The 2015 National Craft Championships has come and gone. The dust has settled, the stations have been disassembled, and the competitors have returned to their homes and to their craft jobs. Over 50 medals were awarded and hundreds of prizes given away. However, for the 187 craft workers that competed, the competition was more than just winning a medal: they were competing for the title of craft champion.During the competition, Construction Citizen's Jeff Stautner had the opportunity to meet and interview a handful of the very talented and hardworking competitors, like Structural-Welding Gold Medalist, ABC Greater Houston sponsored Brandon Moore. Moore received his welding training at Lee College in Baytown, Texas under the Construction and Maintenance Educational Foundation (CMEF), an affiliate of ABC Greater Houston geared towards recruiting and training new workers for the industrial field.
April 01, 2015
According to Breitbart, “Despite the February 21 settlement of a bitter labor dispute at West Coast ports between employers and members of the International Longshore and Warehouse Union (ILWU), whose members command average wages and benefits of about $1,200 a day, the continuing bottleneck is still causing job and revenue losses across many US industries.” The contract negotiations lasted over 9 months between the ILWU and the Pacific Maritime Association (PMA).Unions are notorious for using slow downs, work stoppages, strikes and picket lines as a negotiating ploys to force” management” to sit down at the negotiating table to either listen to worker’s complaints and/or to respond to a demand for higher wages and “better and safer” working conditions for the workers in that particular union.
March 31, 2015
