Construction sector seeks workers while attempting to boost safety record

The Associated General Contractors of America (AGC), Arlington, Virginia, has sent out a consistent message this decade that the industry is seeking new job applicants in the face of what it considers to be a labor shortage in the sector.

The Washington-based Associated Builders and Contractors (ABC) sees the same problem, writing this January, “The construction industry will need to attract an estimated 501,000 additional workers on top of the normal pace of hiring in 2024 to meet the demand for labor,” citing a formula it developed.

The associations’ messaging includes requests for policies at the state and federal level that encourage greater attention to trades that perform work at construction sites.

In text accompanying a construction employment report this March, the AGC wrote in part that it is calling for “greater federal investments in career and technical education programs that focus on teaching key construction skills.”

“Too few future workers are even aware of the many high-paying opportunities available to them in construction," the AGC says.

Echoing that sentiment, then AGC CEO Stephen E. Sandherr said, “A lot more people would be working in high-paying construction positions in more states if they knew about the opportunities that are available. Instead of urging every student to go to college and amass too much debt, federal officials should be investing in programs to show students there are multiple paths to success in life.”

The AGC itself offers numerous courses for contractors, project managers and safety and site supervisors.

The safety courses could prove vital in improving a workplace injury and fatality rate that might give pause to some young would-be construction workers.

The Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS), in its “National Census of Fatal Occupational Injuries in 2022,” released last December, listed fatalities in the “construction and extraction” sector as having the second highest number of fatalities that year, with 1,056.

While the name of that sector implies it might include miners, as defined by the BLS, it does not.

“Workers in these occupations use a variety of resources to build and repair roads, homes and other structures,” the agency says, and include construction laborers, equipment operators, boilermakers, carpenters, electricians and ironworkers.

Of the 1,056 sector fatalities in 2022, falls, slips or trips were the events precipitating 423 of these fatalities. The 2022 fatality rate for the sector increased from 12.3 deaths per 100,000 full-time equivalent (FTE) workers in 2021 to 13.0 in 2022.

A threat to highway construction workers (including asphalt and concrete recyclers) exists in the form of motor vehicles crashing into work zones. In June, AGC announced that 64 percent of highway contractors surveyed reported such incidents during the past year.

The trade group and its new CEO Jeffrey Shoaf wants states to take measures to protect workers, including automated enforcement in construction zones.

“Too few drivers see the need to slow down and pay attention in work zones because too few states have made work zone safety a top priority,” he said in June.

An updated BLS report providing 2023 workplace fatality statistics is likely to be issued this December. Ideally for the AGC and its recruiting efforts, those figures will show measures being recommended and undertaken by the industry are helping make job sites safer places.