Managing the Demand for Skilled Labor within the US Construction Industry

The US construction industry expected to continue its slow climb out of a long and deep recession in 2013 due to the continuing rebound in private nonresidential building construction and home-building. The recovery of the US construction market and the phenomenal growth of the US green construction market will create an acute shortage for both skilled and unskilled construction labor force within the US. This article captures the various factors that attribute to this labor shortage & skill gap and also highlights strategies that can be adopted to effectively manage the demand for skilled labor within the US construction industry. The US construction industry is on a path of recovery from the recession and the demand for construction is slowly improving with the growing demand for nonresidential and other sectors of construction across the United States. Various factors like ongoing debt crisis in Europe, international political instability, a looming fiscal cliff of tax increases and public spend cuts is curtailing the growth of the US construction industry. However, the demand for construction within the US is expected return in late 2013. A real burst of construction start activity is expected to start from 2013 ï¾Ãƒâ€šÃ‚Æ’?? 2015 and the amount of non-residential building starts in current dollar terms is estimated to climb 10 to 25 percent per year during the 2013 ï¾Ãƒâ€šÃ‚Æ’?? 2015 period. This recovery in construction activity will lead to a steady increase in demand for construction workers. The rising demand for skill labor along with reduced labor availability due factors like retirement of Baby Boomers, migration of skilled labor to alternative industries during the recession period, difficulties in attracting new talent etc. will result in severe skill labor shortage. The gap in skill labor availability can lead to project delays and increase in overall construction costs. The effective management of the skill labor becomes very critical for the successful execution of construction projects within budget and schedule.