The phenomenon of a high unemployment rate coupled with a skilled labor shortage continues to baffle many people. Construction executives know exactly why people looking for jobs in the trades cannot find work – it is the skills gap, which is not just confined to America. Construction Citizen has also told you many times about the shifting attitudes on whether college should be for everyone. More and more experts say “no”.Now, NPR has taken notice of the problem. NPR National Desk Correspondent Yuki Noguchi reported on the issue on the news program All Things Considered. Here is the audio of her report, Homebuilding Is Booming, But Skilled Workers Are Scarce. Noguchi spoke with a couple of construction executives in the Houston area: Jan Maly, the President and CEO of J.M. Maly Inc., and Mike Holland, Division President of Marek Brothers Systems.From Noguchi's report:Maly pins much of the blame on the fact that young workers aren't coming into the field to replace all the boomers who are retiring. He says that's due to a cultural and political bias in favor of sending all kids to college, and that there's a stigma against blue-collar work.
Click this link to view the entire Kiley Fall Briefing content, including video, presentation materials, and more: Kiley Advisors 2012 Fall BriefingPat Kiley, respected construction consultant, former head of AGC Houston and Construction Citizen blogger, recently hosted construction industry executives for an update on what's happening in Houston and around the country. His company, Kiley Advisors, LLC, conducts custom conferences and other services for construction firms and associations. His 2012 Fall Briefing was well attended and featured speakers Dan Bellow, Joe Synan and representatives from Kiley Advisors: Candace Hernandez and Pat Kiley himself. It began with a tribute to Dr. Richard Wainerdi, President and CEO of the Texas Medical Center.For those who were unable to attend, or for those who were there and want to share the experience with others, Construction Citizen is proud to partner with Kiley Advisors to present it in its entirety. The following link will take you to a page with videos of each presentation and other content related to the half-day conference held at the Houston offices of Marek Brothers Systems, Inc.:
January 17, 2013
We're not completely out of the woods, but a survey of Associated General Contractors of America (AGC) members shows they're confident that 2013 will be a better year than 2012.Tricia Lynn Silva reports in the San Antonio Business Journal that builders in Texas expect to see business pick up in some key areas: “hospitals, higher-education, retail, warehouse, lodging and private-office construction”. Contractors think things will stay about the same for work like highway projects and manufacturing.The survey, conducted by the AGC of America and Computer Guidance Corporation, is called “Tentative Signs of a Recovery: The 2013 Construction Hiring and Business Outlook”. The AGC website breaks down the results of the survey by states, including the numbers for Texas.The San Antonio Business Journal article quotes AGC of America CEO Stephen Sandherr as saying
January 16, 2013
While the Texas Legislature prepares to wade into the debate over the best way to deal with payroll fraud, some leaders at the local level say they're not waiting for Austin to take action.Doug Miller, a city councilman in the Fort Worth suburb of Keller says he's going to be in Austin quite a lot during this legislative session a bit to ask that lawmakers “do the right thing.”Miller, who is also a vice president of a construction company in Fort Worth, wrote on his blog “I have expressed my support for a bill that will deal with this situation with my state representatives. I have also looked into having an ordinance in place in Keller that requires contractors that work for the city not have illegitimate contractors, and in the coming year, if this legislation doesn’t pass, I will push something through on the local level.”Miller said his plaster, masonry, and stucco firm, Bobby Lee and Company, has been underbid by cheaters by as much as 35 percent.In an interview with Construction Citizen, Miller said his main concern about the legislature is that “they won't do enough”. He said the Texas Workforce Commission, which has endorsed legislation, needs to go back to the way it used to operate: audit companies for misclassification and penalize them by levying fines. Twenty years ago, Miller's company was fined for misclassifcation. “That stopped that for us. We learned our lesson,” Miller said.
January 14, 2013
Construction industry leaders in North Texas have started the process of figuring out what kind of payroll fraud crackdown they could possibly support.Members of the Government Affairs Committee of TEXO in Dallas/Fort Worth met to talk about their legislative priorities on Monday and by all accounts they had a lively discussion about the issue of worker misclassification. Comprised of members from throughout North Texas, TEXO is one of the largest construction industry trade associations in the state.Jack Baxley, TEXO Vice President of Government Affairs, told me members of the group are still mulling their options and they'll hopefully have recommendations ready by the end of the month. “This isn't something that just popped up today,” he said while noting that TEXO wants to make sure that any legislation passed is good for the industry.
January 08, 2013
Key players in the construction industry in North Texas today are expected to decide whether they'll support efforts to crack down on the intentional misclassification of construction workers across the state.Members of the Government Affairs Committee of TEXO, the large trade association for builders in the Dallas/Fort Worth region, are meeting Monday talk about whether they'll take a formal stand against misclassification, also known as payroll fraud, and support legislation to deal with it. The Texas Workforce Commission has endorsed the idea of rooting out payroll fraud on government contracts. Lawmakers could decide to do even more than that, depending on what happens during the Texas Legislature's regular session starting this month. Senator John Carona, R-Dallas, has told his staff at the Business and Commerce Committee to start the process of drafting legislation.
January 07, 2013
Builders around the state will be paying extra close attention to developments in Austin as the 83rd Texas Legislature gavels into session later this month. One of the industry's top concerns is the growing problem of worker misclassfication, also known as payroll fraud.In the legislature's last session two years ago, a payroll fraud proposal from State Representative Joe Deshotel, D-Port Arthur, was unsuccessful, and labor leaders have been pushing for a solution for more than a decade only to consistently see their efforts fail. But, the economic and political landscape has changed dramatically in just the last two years.The trend we've noticed in our reporting at Construction Citizen is that this is no longer seen as a liberal or progressive cause. More and more conservative republicans are now pushing to deal with misclassification because they see it as a rule of law issue.
January 03, 2013
The blue collar heroes we talk about all the time on Construction Citizen are constantly doing good works throughout the communities where they live. In fact, they do this work in an under-the-radar kind of way that causes them to seldom be thanked for it.I found a prime example of this in Northwest Harris County, where workers for several companies including Karsten Interiors, Excel Drywall, D.E. Harvey Builders, Marek Brothers Systems, and others were helping to renovate a boys’ home called The Good Shepherd Residential Treatment Center. (See below for a complete list of the companies involved.)Founded in 1999, the center is a 40-bed home for boys who have been removed from their families by Texas courts for a variety of reasons. It is a non-profit and is always in need of donations.Administrator and CEO of The Good Shepherd, Dr. J. Charles Hinds, told me some of the boys were simply neglected by their families and others were subjected to terrible abuse.
December 20, 2012
The skills gap we’ve covered extensively on Construction Citizen isn’t just a phenomenon in the United States. It’s also a problem in Europe and the Middle East, where The Economist reports that a quarter of 15- to 24-year-olds don’t have a job.In a piece called “The Great Mismatch”, The Economist Schumpeter Blog says:“Altogether 75 million of the world’s young people are unemployed and twice that number are underemployed. This not only represents a huge loss of productive capacity as people in the prime of life are turned into dependents. It is also a potential source of social disruption and a daily source of individual angst.
December 17, 2012
The shortage of construction workers we've been warning about on Construction Citizen is beginning to happen across the nation and the national media is starting to take notice.USA Today reports: “The crunch is affecting a handful of states, including Texas, Arizona, Iowa and Florida. But it's expected to worsen and spread across the USA over the next few years, building officials say. The shortages are already prompting builders to raid each other's job sites for workers.”The newspaper story says some are shocked by this, but regular readers of our blog won't be.Construction Citizen blogger Stan Marek recently asked the question “Where have all the young men gone?” and Greater Houston Builders Association CEO Toy Wood told me in an exclusive interview that home builders are being forced to delay some projects in and around the Houston area because of a lack of skilled workers.The USA Today story goes on to say:“Twenty-nine percent of home builders surveyed by the National Association of Home Builders in June reported some shortage of framing workers and 6% said there was a serious deficit – only slightly less than in 2006 at the height of the home construction frenzy.;
December 10, 2012
