The Workforce Dilemma – What to Do?

by Jonathan McGaha | 4 January 2016 12:00 am

It’s no secret that the U.S. construction industry is facing acute labor shortages in virtually all sectors. There are lots of reasons for this: the country has aged; we lost a lot of workers following the financial crisis of 2008 who never returned; high schools are incentivized to send their graduates to college; and our national immigration policy is, well, a mess.

In my industry-roofing-we know the following to be true, and to further compound the problem:

• The average age of a first-day-on-the-job apprentice roofer is 29.6 years
• 53 percent of our workforce is Latino; the majority of those were born outside the U.S., and language and literacy are significant barriers to training
• Accident and injury rates for our workers rise dramatically at age 45
• Demand for roofing work is projected to increase, on average, by about 5 percent annually in the foreseeable future

In short, we have a deep and complex problem. And while there are no silver bullets, there are a number of things we can be doing to address the problem. I’ll propose six:

1. We have to have a rational immigration policy, one that allows workers to enter the country-legally, of course-when jobs aren’t being filled by U.S.-born workers. Sadly, the current political environment doesn’t allow for an adult conversation of the issue, but without that conversation the problem will only get worse.
2. We must recognize the reality that our workforce will increasingly be Latino-and we must embrace the new reality. That means understanding Latino cultural issues, addressing language and literacy issues, and developing strategies to actively recruit in the Latino community.
3. There is a growing population of people serving in the military and preparing to leave the military that offers enormous opportunities for us. In the National Guard alone, there are 450,000 people serving, with an unemployment rate that is approaching 10 percent. And these are people who must pass drug tests and know how to show up to work on time.
4. We have a compelling story to tell to high school guidance counselors. The story is this: 35 percent of the students you send to college won’t make it past the first year; they will think they failed; they could instead have spent a year learning a construction trade that will not only pay them well but offer them any number of interesting career opportunities.
5. We have to do a better job of onboarding and training the workers we do recruit. People who enter the construction trades expect to be trained, and they expect their training to follow a well-defined career path. Forty percent of the people who chose the roofing trade-and stayed with it- told us they were ready to quit after a week. We must do better.
6. We have to improve the image of the construction industry. We are, increasingly, an industry that demands a unique combination of skills and does critically important work for the country.

Now, doing this is no small task. But if we don’t begin to tackle the problem, there is no question that it will only get worse. Those same demographic and behavioral forces that have created our current problem continue to work against us. There are surely more ideas than the six I’ve suggested. But they are at least a start-and it’s time to get started.

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Bill Good is chief executive officer of the National Roofing Contractors Association, a 129-year-old organization with 3,500 members, headquartered in Rosemont, Ill. Good has held the position for 27 years, and previously served NRCA in several other capacities.

Source URL: https://www.metalconstructionnews.com/articles/2016-state-of-the-industry-labor-shortage/

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