Re: Uber Freight CEO says the shipping recession is at a new tipping point because of Biden's wars.

In article <[email protected]>

GenZ is too fucking lazy to work.  Kill them all.


The construction sector is a fundamental backbone of the nation – 
without structures created by construction workers, Americans would 
have nowhere to eat, sleep, work, or live. And yet, the industry is 
currently battling the highest level of unfilled job openings ever 
recorded.

According to an outlook from Associated Builders and Contractors, a 
trade group for the non-union construction industry, construction 
firms will need to attract an estimated 546,000 additional workers 
on top of the normal pace of hiring in 2023 to meet the demand for 
labor. The construction industry averaged more than 390,000 job 
openings per month in 2022, the highest level on record, while 
unemployment in the sector of 4.6% was the second lowest on record.

A long-term labor force problem
There are simply not enough workers to keep up with the growing 
demand for houses, hospitals, schools, and other structures. What’s 
more, with the passage of Biden’s infrastructure bill, American 
municipalities have large sums of money to invest in the 
revitalization of their buildings, but no one to perform said 
revitalization. The number of online applications for roles in the 
construction industry fell 40% at the beginning of the pandemic and 
has remained flat since, according to ZipRecruiter data from April.

“Despite sharp increases in interest rates over the past year, the 
shortage of construction workers will not disappear in the near 
future,” said ABC Chief Economist Anirban Basu in a February release 
on its labor supply and demand outlook. 

“There is a labor shortage. There are about 650,000 workers missing 
from the construction industry, and construction backlogs are now at 
a four-year high,” said Maria Davidson, CEO and Founder of Kojo, a 
materials management company in an interview with CNBC’s Lori Ann 
Larocco.

The labor challenges come at a time when the construction sector is 
facing other supply headwinds that arose since the pandemic.

“The landscape has dramatically changed since February 2020,” 
Davidson said. “Commercial construction materials prices are now 40% 
higher than they were back in February 2020. When you think about 
materials availability, it’s become dire. Panels and commonly used 
equipment in everything from electrical to mechanical installation 
are now more than a year in delay. And that’s made it very difficult 
for contractors all over the country to get the materials they need 
and be able to install them on time and keep projects on budget.”

The construction sector’s labor issues are showing up across the 
economy.

“I think the biggest place we’re seeing it show up right now is in 
housing,” said Rucha Vankudre, an economist at Lightcast. “People 
just aren’t getting things built the way they want.”

“In cases where you’re building a big hospital project, as an 
example, you might have locked in the timeline that you expected to 
complete something by back in 2019 and now be suffering the 
consequences of the materials disruptions that we’re seeing,” 
Davidson said.

What’s more, Davidson cited “delays cascade” — when a contractor or 
construction company experiences a delay in one trade, or a 
disruption in the supply chain for one material, that will delay 
their next trade or next material acquisition as well.

For construction workers, pay is booming
For workers who seek construction jobs, the timing has never been 
better.

“They’re making more money. It’s a workers’ market,” said Brian 
Turmail, vice president of public affairs and strategic initiatives 
at Associated General Contractors of America. “The construction 
industry is now paying 80% more than the average non-farm job in the 
United States.” 

There is a constant supply of work, and the opportunity to make 
additional income working overtime hours that would not be available 
if the labor pool wasn’t so tight.

Turmail cited an aging labor force as a reason for the continued 
shortage. Workers retire at earlier ages since it is such a 
physically demanding industry, and the labor force skews older. 
Construction firms have been incentivizing workers to delay their 
retirement and work as trainers or teachers. 

Even under these pro-worker conditions, a shift in American work 
culture has played a role in limiting the attractiveness of the 
field to job seekers.

“It’s cultural,” Turmail said. “Mom doesn’t want her babies to grow 
up to be construction workers. For the last 40 years, we’ve been 
preaching a message nationally that the only path to success in life 
lies through a four-year college degree in some kind of an office.” 

Working in construction can be extremely dangerous compared to other 
jobs, with the second-highest rate of occupational fatalities, 
according to the U.S. Census Bureau.

Vankudre said that construction as a career path is not particularly 
appealing to young people, and until the U.S. government and 
construction companies find a way to change that belief among the 
labor force’s newest generations, the shortage will linger. 

Plenty of money to build, not enough to recruit and train
This process, according to Turmail, starts in schools. 

“Firms are realizing that no one’s gonna solve the problem but 
themselves. So, they’re building stronger relationships with high 
school programs, even middle school programs. They’re finding ways 
to get students out to construction job sites to expose them to 
career opportunities,” Turmail said.

Construction firms are not the only ones working to bring new people 
into the industry. LIUNA, the Laborers’ International Union of North 
America, has efforts underway to reach more potential workers.

“We have a lot of different programs to bring new people into the 
construction industry,” said Lisa Martin, LIUNA spokeswoman. 
“Whether they’re justice-involved, bringing more women in, we have 
pre-apprenticeship programs, we have programs to help high school 
students graduate with skills to then start into apprenticeship 
programs. So we have a lot of different avenues to bring more people 
into the work into good paying jobs.”

Shifting the demographics of the existing construction workforce is 
a way to potentially alleviate some of the labor shortage. 

“Construction is fighting workforce shortages with one hand tied 
behind its back,” Turmail said. “Women are half the workforce, and 
yet they’re somewhere around 6% to 7% of the craft workforce, the 
men and women who actually do the construction work in the hard hats 
and the boots. And if we can find a way to increase those 
percentages, we won’t even be talking about labor shortages.” 

Immigration policy is another important lever for the construction 
industry. 

“If you look at the demographics of the U.S., we don’t have enough 
workers. We’re just not going to for a very long time,” Vankudre 
said. “Given we can’t produce more workers in our own country, it 
makes sense that we would have to find them from other places. And I 
think that would definitely alleviate the sort of squeeze we’re 
feeling not just in construction, but really the whole economy.”

“We should also be looking at ways to allow more people to lawfully 
enter the country and work in construction careers, whether that’s a 
temporary work visa program that’s specific to construction, or 
broader comprehensive immigration reform – that needs to be part of 
the conversation about labor shortages in the construction 
industry,” Turmail said. 

President Biden’s recent infrastructure bill magnifies the issue – 
money has been allocated for updating America’s infrastructure, but 
no money has been allocated for enticing new workers into the 
construction industry, or training new workers. This, according to 
Davidson, has worsened the labor shortage that already existed prior 
to the bill’s passage. 

“More money is going to need to be spent on training additional 
workers, bringing people into this industry,” Vankudre said. 
“Because otherwise we are going to hit a point in the future where 
we’re just not building the things we want to, not because we don’t 
have the money, but because we don’t have the people.” 

https://www.cnbc.com/2023/07/29/the-hard-hat-job-with-highest-
level-of-open-positions-ever-recorded.html