Want Your AC Fixed? Good Luck.
Too many empty hats (image courtesy Unsplash)
If you’re wondering why it costs an arm and a leg to get your air conditioning or toilet or lights fixed, why existing home prices are skyrocketing, new home prices are through the roof, traffic projects are slowed to a crawl, and all those Build Back Better infrastructure projects haven’t quite appeared yet, there’s a reason. There’s nobody to build them or fix them. And it’s our fault.
A new report finds that the construction trades in the US are 675,000 workers short of what they need to do the work they have on the books.
In many ways the shortfalls construction is having (and a parallel shortfall in the speciality trades) mirror the worker shortages we are having across all industries (see Parts 1, 2 and 3 of “Where Are the Workers?”). But if you look under the hood of the construction problem, it’s easy to see the insidious impacts the shortage has, and hard to see easy fixes.
Construction workers are old and getting older: by 2028, 25% of the current workforce is expected to retire. The average age of electrical contractors in North Carolina, where I live, is 55.
They aren’t being replaced: between 2020 and 2022, the number of applications for young people signing up to learn skilled trades (think electricians, plumbers, carpenters, brick masons, surveyors, welders, etc.) fell by 49%.
That’s a problem: a new study by the Associated Builders and Contractors finds that to get their work done this year, they would need to attract an additional 546,000 more workers beyond their normal hiring needs.
There are a lot of programs focused on finding new workers: efforts focused on recruiting more women and Blacks to construction field (women make up about 11% of all construction workers; Blacks just 5%); strategies to bring in folks who have prison records; programs to boost apprenticeships.
Among economists and construction company owners, there’s plenty of talk about another solution: immigration. Rucha Vankudre, an economist at Lightcast, a labor market analysis firm recently summarized the argument bluntly in a CNBC interview: “Given that we can’t produce more workers in our own country, it makes sense that we would have to find them from other places.” But what are the chances of a big push for more immigration in today’s political environment?
The longer-term solution though, is not really any of those things.
We brought this on ourselves: over the past 40 years, our society has sent a clear message to every K-12 student: Don’t go into construction or the trades (or manufacturing, or anything that doesn’t require a four-year degree).
And the message has worked; younger people are opting out of the field.
It’s time for a counter-offensive, probably lreading with an argument about wages. “The construction industry is now paying 80% more than the average non-farm job in the United States,” Brian Turmail, with Associated General Contractors of America, told CNBC. “It’s a workers’ market.”
Skilled tradespeople do even better financially. If you enter a 2-4 year apprenticeship program, you can emerge with cash in your pocket, no debt and often making more than your four-year-degree-holding friends, with a skill that is highly unlikely to be automated for the foreseeable future.
There’s an argument about the joy of doing work that involves both mind and body. Depending on the type of work you do, you’ll need math skills, an understanding of negotiation and customer service, creativity in developing workarounds to problems that appear, an understanding of team building, an openness to technology, an interest and willingness to work outside.
Building/installing/fixing pay well, require body and brain (Photo via Unsplash)
But I think the marketing program we need will require something more than logic. I’ve been impressed by the long-term commitment of the Lowe’s Foundation to its “Track to the Trades” program. One part is a traditional grant program, announced in March, awarding $50 million in scholarship funds to community and technical colleges developing creative ways to attract workers in five fields where shortages are particularly apparent: carpentry, electrical, plumbing, small appliance repair and heating, ventilation and air conditioning (HVAC).
That kind of investment helps make the case to new entrants that learning the trades can be affordable and easy. But another part of Lowe’s effort really seems to get to the bigger problem: putting aside the money (solid) and job security (excellent), we have to find a way to make the case that work in the field of construction is something you would actually want to do.
We have to make construction cool again.
With some gloss and glitter, and short, punchy videos, Lowe’s tries to make that case.
Lowe’s work seems dead-on in its approach, but all things added up, it’s a small voice in a large wilderness. We need a lot more places to join them if we are going to convince Gen Z to join the field. Without a construction workforce, where will we live, what roads will we ride on, how will we fix stuff?
-Leslie
References:
A few of the numbers on construction workers: https://www.cnbc.com/2023/07/29/the-hard-hat-job-with-highest-level-of-open-positions-ever-recorded.html
Lowe’s Track to Trades program: https://corporate.lowes.com/newsroom/stories/serving-communities/transforming-trades; https://www.triplepundit.com/story/2023/workforce-training-skilled-trades/768816
Handshake data on Gen Z interest in construction trades: https://www.npr.org/2023/01/05/1142817339/america-needs-carpenters-and-plumbers-try-telling-that-to-gen-z