Reshaping the Construction Industry

The Construction Citizen team has been tracking the progress of worker misclassification laws across the country, including the newly minted crackdown in Tennessee.  Elizabeth McPherson wrote about that when it was first passed last year.  Now we get word out of Nashville that a drywall contractor based in Music City has agreed to pay more than $300,000 in penalties for understating his payroll and misclassifying workers to avoid paying the required taxes and workers compensation insurance.  

Mine is Taller than Yours. Why? Beats me!That conversation is going on around the world as developers find the available financing to buy in the inner city and to satisfy the new and the ultra wealthy’s demand for high-rise living – not to mention the demand from the old and wealthy.It is interesting, as we have noted previously, that engineering and technology have made it possible to build higher with faster elevators, sustainable systems, new wind technology, and new materials able to withstand the stresses. It is interesting from a real estate viewpoint that the sites seem to be smaller and the buildings taller, especially in the inner-city environment. All the conveniences that we proposed in the last century have become a reality, and we have owners and tenants who are willing to build them.Justin McGar writes in a recent issue of Sourceable.net about the 31 tall buildings under construction and the 43 proposed additional new skyscrapers recently approved in Melbourne, Australia. He writes about the ways that engineering is making it possible for developers to dream taller dreams for their new buildings.  

“A global jobs war is coming and there is no time to waste. Cities are crumbling for lack of good jobs. Nations are in revolt because their people can’t get good jobs. The cities and countries that act first—that focus everything they have on creating good jobs—are the ones that will win.”  - Jim Clifton, Chairman of Gallup and author of The Coming Jobs War.Today’s shortage of skilled workers began in the last century when the focus on the need for high tech workers for the new industrial revolution became a vision of everyone getting a four-year college education. Technology was “the answer” and while it has proven a true driver for that sector of the economy, today we still see the shortages that were predicted in the late 90s in the engineering and high tech space. Now we are even seeing calls from many of the super successful entrepreneurs that claim that a college education is unnecessary. They just want to see “your code.” The world has changed. Today, we are in a major jobs shortage in all of the skilled trades, not just in the STEM arena. What happened?Programs like “No Child Left Behind,” charter schools, STEM programs and magnet schools emerged to meet the need that was being unfulfilled by the public school systems that were essentially “dumbing down” our kids to the lowest common denominator of education, while simultaneously shouting that every child should go to college if they were to be successful in the “new economy.”   

On a sunny morning this spring, I stopped by the Brittmoore Field Office Trailer to visit with Roberto Sanchez, a project manager from Reytec Construction Resources, about a massive reconstruction project that they are working on.  The project involves installing 5900 feet of new storm sewer, sanitary sewer, and water line underground along Brittmoore Road between Hammerly Road and Clay Road in Houston, Texas.  The scale of the project is impressive.  The diameter of the storm sewer alone begins at seven feet by four feet “boxes” and increases to eight by four feet openings.