The part of our coronavirus survey looks at the affect the coronavirus pandemic has had on the workforce for contractors.
The first sign of trouble in the industry is the postponement or cancellation of jobs. When that happens, workers are sent home and their lives become more precarious. Even in these difficult times, contractors work exceptionally hard to keep on the employees and, even in good times, are reluctant to overstock. During the last few years of labor shortages, it would seem contractors would be in good position to save jobs even during a downturn.
Economic downturns hurt workers first, and the same is true with the downturn related to the coronavirus threat
We conducted the final survey from Monday, May 11 through Thursday, May 14, and 109 people responded. We broke our report into four areas:
- Demographics
- Overall attitude
- Revenue changes
- Project and employee changes
The Project and Employee Changes section is below. Follow links in the sidebar to see the other sections.
If you have questions or would like to provide feedback, please contact Paul Deffenbaugh, editorial director, pdeffenbaugh@moderntrade.com
Project and Employee Changes
(Note: Click on plus sign to enlarge images.)
The left side of the chart represents the percentage of contractors who haven’t postponed any jobs and the right side indicates those who have postponed all of their jobs, with a continuum between them. Comparing the results of the May 11 survey to the April 13 survey, we can see that contractors have become more likely to postpone jobs, with the largest percentage of them (33.1%) saying they had postponed less than 10% of their jobs.
The number postponing large percentage of jobs–greater than 50%–declined over the month between the two surveys. As contractors work through the backlog, they are also figuring out how to do the work under the new social distancing restrictions.
While contractors were slightly less inclined to postpone jobs, they were more inclined to cancel them. In the April 13 survey, 62.6% of contractors said they had not cancelled any jobs, but in the May 11 survey, 55.6% made the same decline. However, if you compare contractors who report they have cancelled more than half their jobs, you get similar responses between the second and third surveys.
When asked about employee layoffs, about 40% of respondents nationally indicate they have laid off field employees. That is the same percentage across all three surveys, indicating contractors reacted quickly to control costs in response to declining work.
However, there has been a change in layoffs of office staff. In the March 30 and April 13 surveys, about a quarter of contractors said they had laid off office staff. In the most recent survey, that percentage had increased to nearly equal the number who said they laid off field employees (38.9%).
At the beginning of the coronavirus shutdown, contractors were exceedingly positive about their ability to bring back employees after a short furlough period. In the second survey, that confidence dropped slightly from 92.9% to 84.4%. In the last survey it rebounded slightly to 87.2% of contractors feeling they could bring back laid off employees.
Across the board, the types of problems contractors are facing as a result of the coronavirus threat have been more prominent since the April 13 survey with two exceptions. Respondents are less likely to cite slower payments and reduced leads. About 50% of contractors say they are experiencing slow payment issues, which is down from 64.2% in the April 13 survey. For reduced leads, the percentage of respondents reporting that issue dropped from about 50% in April 13 to 37.9% in the most recent survey.
