CCD - And Construction Image

Mike Finley

CCD is Construction Career Days, they put on career days across the country designed to introduce young people to the many job opportunities in construction in hopes of helping with the worsening skilled labor shortage in the construction industry. In case you want to get involved some statistics:

The ranks of skilled construction workers are thinning out across the United States.

The average age of a construction worker is 47 years old!!!!

The prevalent image of the industry among young people seems to be that it provides primarily dirty, low paying jobs requiring minimal intelligence, with little chance of advancement in an industry of no consequence.

One poll when asked to grade 250 occupations in terms of desirability, youths ranked construction 249th.

The image flies in the face of reality. Construction plays a disproportionate role in America's economy providing 5% of the total non-farm work force while contributing 9% of the gross domestic product.

In 2006 the value of construction was 1.2 trillion, built by workers whose pay averaged $20.51 per hour - 20% higher than the average of all private industry non-supervisory workers in the United States.

The more skilled the workers, the more money they make, NCCER research showed that trade professional make between $25,000-$75,000 a year and more.


If you want to get involved locally: http://www.uritc.org/nccdc/content_t...adline=Welcome!

Glasshousebltr

Very interesting my dear Watson.

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Bob

RobertCDF

For young people like me this is a good thing. In 25 years there will be a shortage of skilled construction workers meaning I can charge a lot more.

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Robert Shaw
Colorado Springs Custom Decks
Colorado Custom Decks
Custom Composite Decks

Tom M

I kind of disagree. Decline in skilled youth I agree but like computers and everything else they make things easier as time goes on so the actual skill to accomplish something is minimum. Instead of knowing DOS,excell ect you can now just buy a simple program of clicks and drags. Instead of dialing a phone you can just speak. Construction will probably evolve to more pre-fab enviromental assemblies like ICF foundation or even like that new Owens Corning finished basement. Sometimes knowing more is worth less. Just look at the new millionares in the country are rappers and athletes.

Mike Finley

Unfortunately, I would have to disagree too. 25 years from now will not be a jump that takes place from today and now it's 25 years later. In between now and then there will many, many changes. Simply look at the last 20 years. Illegals went from picking fruit (a job Americans didn't want?) to migrating to almost every state in this country, all the way to the northern border, now doing drywall, framing and more (Jobs American's did want!).

If there is a vacuum created by a lack of skilled labor there will be something to fill it. Perhaps it will be factory built decks imported from China and sold at Costco and Walmart? Sounds crazy but so did the guy who told the farmer that one day they would be factory farms to grow hot house tomatoes without using soil.

RobertCDF

I think it will be an advantage for some time... Maybe not forever but I think it will be to my advantage for a little bit. Especially when all the track houses that are being blown out now with cheap labor start to come apart. People will be in need of someone to do it right. And with only a few to do it right prices will reflect that.

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Robert Shaw
Colorado Springs Custom Decks
Colorado Custom Decks
Custom Composite Decks

Tom M

There will be plumbers who never will have done black pipe threading and sweating copper, let alone lead. I remember out of High school I roofed after schools on a work program. Most guys ripped roofs with pitch forks and hand nailed after carrying up the roof. They charged about 200/sq was the common base number. Then nail guns, and hoists cut the job in half and guys were making a killing at $200/sq. Then it was the norm to do it this way but some guys brought in illegals fo $50-60 a day and made money again by putting people in motion cheap without having to employ them every day. Now its 20- years later or so and it cant be done any faster with any more people and these people charge similar numbers. I cant see anyone existing in business unless there is a leap in tech or legal status of how operations are run. Even then the governmant will have to hurt the small guy trying to compete to set a new bar. Roofing was an example of a type of work that is very labor intensive. You could have 1-2 skilled guys the rest of the staff could be ripping or cleaning. Now these guys are doing the skilled work in 70% of the trades after short period of learning.