Lack of Workers Still Hampering Construction Industry, Says New Survey

Construction companies across the country are continuing to confront unprecedented challenges in finding new workers, according to a just-released survey.

The 2021 Autodesk-Associated General Contractors Workforce Survey reveals that out of more than 2,100 company responses, more than 90% said they currently had open hourly craft positions.

An equally large 89% said they were having a difficult time filling some or all of those craft positions.

The challenge in salaried positions, according to the survey, has proven equally great, with 86% of respondents saying they were having a hard time filling them.

The most cited reason for the lack of workers, mentioned by 72% of the respondents, was that the candidates who were available for work were not qualified.

But a nearly as large 58% said that unemployment insurance supplements have been “keeping workers away.”

Many of those benefits, a part of an unprecedented expansion of the nation’s unemployment benefits system in response to the Covid-10 outbreak, expired on September 5.

The dearth of new workers is hitting union and open-shop companies alike: some 70% of those always hiring union craft workers reported a lack of qualified candidates, with 74% of open-shop firms that saying the same.

For all of that, 40% of responding firms reported that they had added at least one new worker to their rolls since the summer of 2020.

In trying to both keep and recruit workers, some 73% of the firms said they had raised base pay rates, a significant increase over an August 2020 survey indicating that only 38% of companies had done the same.

In addition, just over 33% of the firms said they have established incentives and hiring bonuses since 2020 in a move to attract new workers.

Respondents also indicated that they were increasingly implementing training programs for those new workers who do end up getting hired.

In a statement, Allison Scott, customer marketing director at Autodesk, said the “continued investments in hiring, training and technology highlighted in this year’s study shows that even while dealing with ongoing challenges nearly two years into the pandemic, the industry remains committed to building better with a resilient workforce.”

By Garry Boulard

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