Colorado construction contractors remain desperate for workers, but they don’t expect it will get easier to find them, according to a survey released Wednesday by the Associated General Contractors of America.
Nearly 92 percent of the 88 construction firms surveyed reported that they needed to hire additional skilled craft workers, while 79 percent said they needed additional salaried office personnel, over the coming 12 months.
But 80 percent reported having a hard time filling some or all of the craft positions they had open, similar to the rate reported nationally. When it came to salaried positions, 63 percent reported difficulties in finding qualified applicants, above the 56 percent reported nationally.
“The overwhelming majority of constructions firms are having a hard time finding qualified workers,” said Ken Simonson, chief economist with the AGC, on a conference call. “Labor shortages are not going away anytime soon.”
Electricians, carpenters, installers, pipelayers and general laborers were some of the toughest craft positions to fill in Colorado, while project managers, estimators, building information management and quality control personnel were the toughest to find on the salaried side.
About three-quarters of employers said it was more difficult to find electricians than it was a year ago, while 73 percent said it had gotten harder to find carpenters.
When asked about the outlook for the next 12 months, about 52 percent of employers expected it to get harder to find craft workers, while 31 percent expected it to stay the same. When it came to salaried workers, 45 percent expected it to get harder, while 26 percent predicted it would be comparable to the past year.
As to the strategies construction firms have used to attract and retain craft workers the past year, 70 percent said they had increased base pay, 40 percent boosted incentives and bonuses and 39 percent improved their benefits. When it came to salaried workers, 69 percent boosted base pay, 57 percent offered bonuses and 39 percent sweetened benefits.
Faced with shortages and a surging wave of retirements, Colorado’s construction industry has worked hard to get the attention of young adults making career decisions and even provide free training. And while that has expanded the applicant pool, employers aren’t necessarily happy with the quality of the new entrants.
When asked about the skills of the craft workers coming through the pipeline, 51 percent described their training as poor, and 34 percent described it as fair. Nearly 70 percent rated the ability of those potential hires to pass a drug test as poor or fair, while two-thirds had doubts about the ability of future hires to pass a criminal background check.
Poaching is also a problem in the construction industry. Nearly 64 percent of employers reported having lost hourly craft workers to a rival construction firm, while 21 percent said they had lost them to another industry. When it came to salaried staff, 43 percent have lost workers to other construction firms and 21 percent to other industries.
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To cope with a lack of workers, construction firms have reduced their hiring standards, provided more in-house training, boosted overtime and farmed more work out to subcontractors. Just under half have deployed labor-saving equipment, such as 3-D printers, and techniques to boost productivity, such as offsite fabrication and lean construction.
While immigration wasn’t asked about on the survey, several contractors on the conference call said they want to see comprehensive immigration reform and a streamlined worker-visa process to help fill the gap.
Colorado’s dearth of construction workers is contributing to longer-than-expected completion times on projects and higher-than-expected costs. About half of those surveyed said they had put those higher prices into bids and contracts.
