Design and Construction Week: Construction Job Shortages

February 9-12, 2021 is Design and Construction week. You can read more about this week a blog posted earlier this week.

It’s particularly important to highlight this week as the construction industry is facing a number of job shortages. While COVID-19 has caused some construction projects to be delayed, there is still a great need for a skilled workforce.

The 2020 Construction Hiring and Business Outlook report by the Associated General Contractors of America states, “81 percent of respondents say they are having a hard time filling positions. Almost two-thirds expect it will continue to be hard or become harder to hire personnel in the coming 12 months.”

These staffing challenges are making it even more difficult for project managers to complete projects on schedule and on budget – and on top of a global pandemic.

In order to combat staffing shortages, firms have turned toward pay raises, incentive programs, better benefit contributions, and increased training efforts.

“One in three firms increased money allocated to technical education and nearly as many restructured or changed programming for current craft professional recruits,” states the report.

Another method employed by firms is to turn to technology, though this may create a new problem: project managers need to be able to understand and use mobile technology, cloud-based project management software, and building information modeling. The report showed that IT challenges related to implementing and training on the technology persist.

In spite of the pandemic, construction firms responded that they anticipate adding staff at a rate similar to previous years (75% in 2020, compared to 77% in 2019).

“Worker shortages and worker quality are the foremost concern of contractors this year,” states the report. “When asked to identify which of 17 issues are the biggest concerns to their firm, 75 percent of respondents listed worker quality and 72 percent picked worker shortages.”

For those in the construction project management realm, it’s important to have a strong knowledge of where to find skilled workers, how best to keep up with training, and how to stay on top of schedules to ensure projects are completed as expected.

Capitol Tech’s construction degree programs offer courses in finance, project management, planning and scheduling, and management of field operations, training and adult education, and construction risk management, to create construction employees that can tackle any challenge that comes their way.

Want to learn about construction? Capitol Tech offers bachelor’s, master’s and doctorate degrees in construction, facilities, and safety. Many courses are available both on campus and online. To learn more about Capitol Tech’s degree programs, contact admissions@captechu.edu.