Concern grows over construction work force.

• Position: Special Report: 1990 Associated General Contractors of Alaska Annual Conference

Concern Grows Over Construction Work Force

The construction industry will offer the hottest job market of the next decade, according to construction experts across the country. With fewer young people entering the work force and more older workers retiring, the industry is going to need many more workers than will be available.

"We're going to need all the workers we can find and train," says Paul Emerick, past president of Associated General Contractors of America, the nation's oldest and largest construction trade association.

The construction industry nationally is projected to grow 1.2 percent per year through the middle of this decade, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. As the industry's need for craftspeople increases, however, the number of qualified workers will be decreasing. The Census Bureau projects that 12 million fewer people will enter the work force during the next 14 years.

These work-force shortages will have a significant effect on the construction industry and, in turn, on the overall economy, experts predict. A faltering construction industry would indirectly affect other industries. Without the necessary work force to repair and expand existing transportation, power, telephone and sewage systems, without new buildings for office and retail expansion, the growth of existing businesses and communities is stunted, they say.

"As the total supply of available workers declines, what may seem like a local problem now is going to turn into a national problem and productivity will suffer," Emerick says. "For those willing to learn and train, the job opportunities in this industry couldn't look better."

Some of the nation's leading construction executives concur. "The opportunities in construction will be far greater in the next 20 years than they have been since the 1950s," says James Giachino, director of human resources at the Barton-Malow Co. in Southfield, Mich. "With this country's commitment to rebuilding infrastructure, I anticipate a surge of building in the next decade that is going to require more skilled construction workers than ever before."

Jerry Cooper, vice president of HCB Contractors in Dallas, Tex., points out that new types of jobs are going to become available as the industry develops new technologies.

Not everyone agrees that a work force shortage is certain. Neal Fried, labor market economist with the Alaska Department of Labor, thinks a worker surplus is pending nationally in the short-term...