A group of owners, academics, construction organizations and labor unions recently participated in a conference focused on the data available on construction labor force supply and demand, and how that information is used throughout the industry. The conference was sponsored by the National Institute of Building Sciences (NISB) and coordinated by the AFL-CIO’s Building Trades Department and Dale Belman, an economics professor at Michigan State University.
Presentations by McGraw-Hill, Industrial Information Resources and the Construction Users Roundtable and showcased what industry analysts can provide in the United States. BuildForce Canada explained the Canadian system of construction industry labor supply and demand forecasting, which is run under the auspices of the government.
The participants agreed that, overall, the lack of comprehensive data on the types of upcoming construction projects, their anticipated start dates and types and number of various craftsworkers needed to construct the projects has a ripple affect across the industry as employers don’t know how many people they can afford to employ; training programs don’t know how many people they should be putting into the pipeline; and owners don’t know if there will be qualified craftsworkers for their projects.
The next steps are for the industry participants to determine what statistics they use from the U.S. government-collected data, determine what information would help the industry with its forecasting efforts and meet with government agencies to ask if there is additional data – either already collected and not disseminated or that could be collected and disseminated.
AGC will continue to participate in these efforts.
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