Construction jobs across the country increased by 61,000 jobs in February, according to new data compiled by the Associated General Contractors of America.
Association officials said this is the highest level of job growth since June 2008. However, they cautioned that the Trump administration’s newly imposed steel and aluminum tariffs have the potential to undermine future employment growth for the industry.
“Construction industry employment has accelerated over the past four months, and industry pay rates are now more than 10 percent higher than the private-sector average,” said Ken Simonson, the association’s chief economist.
Simonson added that the tariffs on steel and aluminum will add to rapidly rising materials costs.
“The combination of higher materials and labor costs could push some contractors out of business and make many projects unaffordable,” he said.
Construction employment totaled 7.2 million jobs in February, which was a gain of 61,000 for the month and 254,000, or 3.7 percent, over 12 months.
According to Simonson, the year-over-year growth rate in industry jobs was more than double the 1.6 percent rise in total nonfarm payroll employment.
Additionally, residential construction and nonresidential construction saw an increase of jobs. Residential added 25,400 jobs in February and 107,500 jobs, or 4 percent, over the past 12 months. Nonresidential increased by 35,400 jobs in February and 147,200 positions, or 3.5 percent, over 12 months.
While the industry added over a quarter-million jobs during the past year, the number of unemployed job seekers with recent construction experience fell by 49,000 between February 2017 and February 2018.
Simonson said this suggests that most of the new hires at construction firms are from other sectors of the economy or new to the labor force.
With spotlight on safety, Connecticut DOT says state’s bridges are safe
With the spotlight on bridge safety following the collapse of a pedestrian span last Thursday at Florida International University in Miami, the Connecticut Department of Transportation said Monday that it is confident its construction and inspection methods ensure the state's bridges are safe.
The National Transportation Safety Board is investigating the collapse of the Florida bridge that caused at least six fatalities, the Associated Press reported. The bridge — designed by FIGG Bridge Group for Munilla Construction Management — was slated to open to pedestrians in 2019, according to the AP.
The Associated Press has reported that FIGG was found to have construction violations from a 2012 incident in which part of a Virginia bridge it was constructing fell.
In Connecticut, FIGG Bridge Group has worked as a consultant inspection firm alongside the state DOT on about nine bridge construction projects, including the Pearl Harbor Memorial Bridge and the ongoing Gold Star Memorial Bridge construction, according to the DOT.
DOT spokesman Kevin Nursick said Monday the full investigation needs to take place to determine what happened in the Florida bridge collapse.
He said FIGG is a well-respected multinational company that has worked on thousands of projects worldwide and is working in a much different role in Connecticut than with the Florida bridge.
The company is working in conjunction with the DOT, and under the DOT's oversight, to ensure construction on the Gold Star meets the DOT's criteria.
"It's a layered process," he added. "No one person has the final say on anything."
Accelerated Bridge Construction
The Florida bridge made use of a technique called Accelerated Bridge Construction, which has been the topic of much recent discussion since the collapse, but Nursick cautioned against drawing comparisons between the Florida bridge and any projects in Connecticut that used Accelerated Bridge Construction.
He said Accelerated Bridge Construction is simply a term for a methodology that reduces the on-site construction time frame for a project and carries no more risks than conventional construction methods.
The DOT used Accelerated Bridge Construction when it replaced a bridge on Interstate 84 in Southington over a weekend in 2014, rather than move forward with a conventional construction project that would have created traffic congestion for potentially more than two years.
The DOT constructed the bridge at a staging area next to the highway, using both prefabricated components and components constructed at the site, and then closed the highway during installation, he said.
The DOT also used Accelerated Bridge Construction to replace the Oil Mill Road bridge in Waterford.
When the DOT performs Accelerated Bridge Construction, it uses the same "tried and true" construction and engineering principles as conventional construction, he said. For example, the pre-fabricated pieces meet the same design standards as a conventionally constructed span.
But since much of the time-consuming work is done away from the bridge, there is less of an impact to the public than in a typical construction project, he said.
Nursick compared the practice to buying a pre-fabricated shed and installing it in your backyard, versus building it from scratch. CLICK TITLE TO CONTINUE
Hartford region crafting new economic development strategy
Matt Pilon
In Hartford, 2018 is turning out to be a planning year.
While the Commission on Fiscal Stability and Economic Growth has created a buzz at the state Capitol around Connecticut's path forward, several regional groups have begun to examine what strategies would best propel Greater Hartford's economy.
The so-called Comprehensive Economic Development Strategy (CEDS), which involves the MetroHartford Alliance, 38-town Capitol Region Council of Governments (CRCOG), Hartford Foundation and others, is backed by federal dollars.
The CEDS plans have been created every six years since the 1990s, said John Shemo, the MetroHartford Alliance's vice president of entrepreneurial ecosystems.
Past strategy recommendations have included creating: a dedicated busway (CTfastrak); the Capital Region Development Authority and Hartford Parking Authority; the Hartford-to-Springfield rail service; a construction jobs program; and an internship program that helped the MetroHartford Alliance conceive its now popular HYPE group for young professionals, Shemo said.
"I think we've come miles and we've got miles to go," Shemo said.
CRCOG President Lyle Wray said that while previous CEDS plans have had some influence, the 2018 plan aims to drive the largest possible impact for the region.
"It's not going to just be a wish list of projects," Wray said. "This is not just 'here we go with another CEDS.' "
CRCOG has a $175,000 budget for the effort, compared to $50,000 in 2012. The Alliance and Hartford Foundation kicked in some financial aid and the group recently hired Pittsburgh-based Fourth Economy as an economic consultant.
Wray said Fourth Economy will help the regional partners — including an advisory committee of business, education, government and nonprofit leaders — identify a handful of core strategies and figure out ways to stick with them over the next five to 20 years.
"The problem is not a clever plan, it's what you do with the report," Wray said.
One idea Wray supports, though it's not guaranteed to be in the final CEDS, is creating a large-scale apprenticeship program for high school students that would get them an industry credential for one of the state's key industries, including manufacturing.
Wray said Colorado's "CareerWise" program could serve as a potential model. It received charitable corporate donations of $9.5 million and aims to serve 20,000 students within 10 years.
Wray said he expects the CEDS plan to be complete before the end of the year.
Robots break new ground in construction industry
TERENCE CHEA
As a teenager working for his dad's construction business, Noah Ready-Campbell dreamed that robots could take over the dirty, tedious parts of his job, such as digging and leveling soil for building projects.
Now the former Google engineer is turning that dream into a reality with Built Robotics, a startup that's developing technology to allow bulldozers, excavators and other construction vehicles to operate themselves.
"The idea behind Built Robotics is to use automation technology make construction safer, faster and cheaper," said Ready-Campbell, standing in a dirt lot where a small bulldozer moved mounds of earth without a human operator.
The San Francisco startup is part of a wave of automation that's transforming the construction industry, which has lagged behind other sectors in technological innovation. Backed by venture capital, tech startups are developing robots, drones, software and other technologies to help the construction industry to boost speed, safety and productivity.
Autonomous machines are changing the nature of construction work in an industry that's struggling to find enough skilled workers while facing a backlog of building projects.
"We need all of the robots we can get, plus all of the workers working, in order to have economic growth," said Michael Chui, a partner at McKinsey Global Institute in San Francisco. "As machines do some of the work that people used to do, the people have to migrate and transition to other forms of work, which means lots of retraining."
Workers at Berich Masonry in Englewood, Colorado, recently spent several weeks learning how to operate a bricklaying robot known as SAM. That's short for Semi-Automated Mason, a $400,000 machine which is made by Victor, New York-based Construction Robotics. The machine can lay about 3,000 bricks in an eight-hour shift - several times more than a mason working by hand.
SAM's mechanical arm picked up bricks, covered them with mortar and carefully placed them to form the outside wall of a new elementary school. Working on a scaffold, workers loaded the machine with bricks and scraped off excess mortar left behind by the robot.
The goal, said company president Todd Berich, is to use technology to take on more work and keep his existing customers happy. "Right now I have to tell them 'no' because we're at capacity," he said.
Bricklayer Michael Walsh says the robot lessens the load on his body, but he doesn't think it will take his job. "It ain't going to replace people," Walsh said.
The International Union of Bricklayers and Allied Craftworkers isn't too concerned that robots will displace its members anytime soon, according to policy director Brian Kennedy.
"There are lots of things that SAM isn't capable of doing that you need skilled bricklayers to do," Kennedy said. "We support anything that supports the masonry industry. We don't stand in the way of technology."
The rise of construction robots comes as the building industry faces a severe labor shortage.
A recent survey by the Associated General Contractors of America found that 70 percent of construction firms are having trouble finding skilled workers.
"To get qualified people to handle a loader or a haul truck or even run a plant, they're hard to find right now," said Mike Moy, a mining plant manager at Lehigh Hanson. "Nobody wants to get their hands dirty anymore. They want a nice, clean job in an office."
At his company's mining plant in Sunol, California, Moy is saving time and money by using a drone to measure the giant piles of rock and sand his company sells for construction.
The autonomous quadcopter can survey the entire 90-acre site in 25 minutes. Previously, the company hired a contractor who would take a whole day to measure the piles with a truck-mounted laser.
The drone is made by Silicon Valley-based Kespry, which converts the survey data into detailed 3-D maps and charges an annual subscription fee for its services. The startup also provides drones and mapping services to insurance companies surveying homes damaged by natural disasters.
"Not only is it safer and faster, but you get more data, as much as ten to a hundred times more data," said Kespry CEO George Mathew. "This becomes a complete game changer for a lot of the industrial work that's being accomplished today."
At Built Robotics, Ready-Campbell, the company's founder and CEO, envisions the future of construction work as a partnership between humans and smart machines.
"The robots basically do the 80 percent of the work, which is more repetitive, more dangerous, more monotonous," he said. "And then the operator does the more skilled work, where you really need a lot of finesse and experience."
Built Robotics recently used its automated bulldozer — retrofitted with sensors and autonomous driving technology — to grade the earth on a construction site in San Jose. The project allows the startup to both test its technology and generate some revenue.
"I'm very excited about where autonomous machines could be used in our industry," said Kyle Trew, a contractor who worked with Built Robotics on the San Jose project. "Hopefully I can use this as a tool to get an edge on some of my competitors."
“Construction industry employment has accelerated over the past four months, and industry pay rates are now more than 10 percent higher than the private-sector average,” said Ken Simonson, the association’s chief economist.
Simonson added that the tariffs on steel and aluminum will add to rapidly rising materials costs.
“The combination of higher materials and labor costs could push some contractors out of business and make many projects unaffordable,” he said.
Construction employment totaled 7.2 million jobs in February, which was a gain of 61,000 for the month and 254,000, or 3.7 percent, over 12 months.
According to Simonson, the year-over-year growth rate in industry jobs was more than double the 1.6 percent rise in total nonfarm payroll employment.
Additionally, residential construction and nonresidential construction saw an increase of jobs. Residential added 25,400 jobs in February and 107,500 jobs, or 4 percent, over the past 12 months. Nonresidential increased by 35,400 jobs in February and 147,200 positions, or 3.5 percent, over 12 months.
While the industry added over a quarter-million jobs during the past year, the number of unemployed job seekers with recent construction experience fell by 49,000 between February 2017 and February 2018.
Simonson said this suggests that most of the new hires at construction firms are from other sectors of the economy or new to the labor force.
With spotlight on safety, Connecticut DOT says state’s bridges are safe
With the spotlight on bridge safety following the collapse of a pedestrian span last Thursday at Florida International University in Miami, the Connecticut Department of Transportation said Monday that it is confident its construction and inspection methods ensure the state's bridges are safe.
The National Transportation Safety Board is investigating the collapse of the Florida bridge that caused at least six fatalities, the Associated Press reported. The bridge — designed by FIGG Bridge Group for Munilla Construction Management — was slated to open to pedestrians in 2019, according to the AP.
The Associated Press has reported that FIGG was found to have construction violations from a 2012 incident in which part of a Virginia bridge it was constructing fell.
In Connecticut, FIGG Bridge Group has worked as a consultant inspection firm alongside the state DOT on about nine bridge construction projects, including the Pearl Harbor Memorial Bridge and the ongoing Gold Star Memorial Bridge construction, according to the DOT.
DOT spokesman Kevin Nursick said Monday the full investigation needs to take place to determine what happened in the Florida bridge collapse.
He said FIGG is a well-respected multinational company that has worked on thousands of projects worldwide and is working in a much different role in Connecticut than with the Florida bridge.
The company is working in conjunction with the DOT, and under the DOT's oversight, to ensure construction on the Gold Star meets the DOT's criteria.
"It's a layered process," he added. "No one person has the final say on anything."
Accelerated Bridge Construction
The Florida bridge made use of a technique called Accelerated Bridge Construction, which has been the topic of much recent discussion since the collapse, but Nursick cautioned against drawing comparisons between the Florida bridge and any projects in Connecticut that used Accelerated Bridge Construction.
He said Accelerated Bridge Construction is simply a term for a methodology that reduces the on-site construction time frame for a project and carries no more risks than conventional construction methods.
The DOT used Accelerated Bridge Construction when it replaced a bridge on Interstate 84 in Southington over a weekend in 2014, rather than move forward with a conventional construction project that would have created traffic congestion for potentially more than two years.
The DOT constructed the bridge at a staging area next to the highway, using both prefabricated components and components constructed at the site, and then closed the highway during installation, he said.
The DOT also used Accelerated Bridge Construction to replace the Oil Mill Road bridge in Waterford.
When the DOT performs Accelerated Bridge Construction, it uses the same "tried and true" construction and engineering principles as conventional construction, he said. For example, the pre-fabricated pieces meet the same design standards as a conventionally constructed span.
But since much of the time-consuming work is done away from the bridge, there is less of an impact to the public than in a typical construction project, he said.
Nursick compared the practice to buying a pre-fabricated shed and installing it in your backyard, versus building it from scratch. CLICK TITLE TO CONTINUE
Hartford region crafting new economic development strategy
Matt Pilon
In Hartford, 2018 is turning out to be a planning year.
While the Commission on Fiscal Stability and Economic Growth has created a buzz at the state Capitol around Connecticut's path forward, several regional groups have begun to examine what strategies would best propel Greater Hartford's economy.
The so-called Comprehensive Economic Development Strategy (CEDS), which involves the MetroHartford Alliance, 38-town Capitol Region Council of Governments (CRCOG), Hartford Foundation and others, is backed by federal dollars.
The CEDS plans have been created every six years since the 1990s, said John Shemo, the MetroHartford Alliance's vice president of entrepreneurial ecosystems.
Past strategy recommendations have included creating: a dedicated busway (CTfastrak); the Capital Region Development Authority and Hartford Parking Authority; the Hartford-to-Springfield rail service; a construction jobs program; and an internship program that helped the MetroHartford Alliance conceive its now popular HYPE group for young professionals, Shemo said.
"I think we've come miles and we've got miles to go," Shemo said.
CRCOG President Lyle Wray said that while previous CEDS plans have had some influence, the 2018 plan aims to drive the largest possible impact for the region.
"It's not going to just be a wish list of projects," Wray said. "This is not just 'here we go with another CEDS.' "
CRCOG has a $175,000 budget for the effort, compared to $50,000 in 2012. The Alliance and Hartford Foundation kicked in some financial aid and the group recently hired Pittsburgh-based Fourth Economy as an economic consultant.
Wray said Fourth Economy will help the regional partners — including an advisory committee of business, education, government and nonprofit leaders — identify a handful of core strategies and figure out ways to stick with them over the next five to 20 years.
"The problem is not a clever plan, it's what you do with the report," Wray said.
One idea Wray supports, though it's not guaranteed to be in the final CEDS, is creating a large-scale apprenticeship program for high school students that would get them an industry credential for one of the state's key industries, including manufacturing.
Wray said Colorado's "CareerWise" program could serve as a potential model. It received charitable corporate donations of $9.5 million and aims to serve 20,000 students within 10 years.
Wray said he expects the CEDS plan to be complete before the end of the year.
Robots break new ground in construction industry
TERENCE CHEA
As a teenager working for his dad's construction business, Noah Ready-Campbell dreamed that robots could take over the dirty, tedious parts of his job, such as digging and leveling soil for building projects.
Now the former Google engineer is turning that dream into a reality with Built Robotics, a startup that's developing technology to allow bulldozers, excavators and other construction vehicles to operate themselves.
The San Francisco startup is part of a wave of automation that's transforming the construction industry, which has lagged behind other sectors in technological innovation. Backed by venture capital, tech startups are developing robots, drones, software and other technologies to help the construction industry to boost speed, safety and productivity.
Autonomous machines are changing the nature of construction work in an industry that's struggling to find enough skilled workers while facing a backlog of building projects.
"We need all of the robots we can get, plus all of the workers working, in order to have economic growth," said Michael Chui, a partner at McKinsey Global Institute in San Francisco. "As machines do some of the work that people used to do, the people have to migrate and transition to other forms of work, which means lots of retraining."
Workers at Berich Masonry in Englewood, Colorado, recently spent several weeks learning how to operate a bricklaying robot known as SAM. That's short for Semi-Automated Mason, a $400,000 machine which is made by Victor, New York-based Construction Robotics. The machine can lay about 3,000 bricks in an eight-hour shift - several times more than a mason working by hand.
SAM's mechanical arm picked up bricks, covered them with mortar and carefully placed them to form the outside wall of a new elementary school. Working on a scaffold, workers loaded the machine with bricks and scraped off excess mortar left behind by the robot.
The goal, said company president Todd Berich, is to use technology to take on more work and keep his existing customers happy. "Right now I have to tell them 'no' because we're at capacity," he said.
Bricklayer Michael Walsh says the robot lessens the load on his body, but he doesn't think it will take his job. "It ain't going to replace people," Walsh said.
The International Union of Bricklayers and Allied Craftworkers isn't too concerned that robots will displace its members anytime soon, according to policy director Brian Kennedy.
"There are lots of things that SAM isn't capable of doing that you need skilled bricklayers to do," Kennedy said. "We support anything that supports the masonry industry. We don't stand in the way of technology."
The rise of construction robots comes as the building industry faces a severe labor shortage.
A recent survey by the Associated General Contractors of America found that 70 percent of construction firms are having trouble finding skilled workers.
"To get qualified people to handle a loader or a haul truck or even run a plant, they're hard to find right now," said Mike Moy, a mining plant manager at Lehigh Hanson. "Nobody wants to get their hands dirty anymore. They want a nice, clean job in an office."
At his company's mining plant in Sunol, California, Moy is saving time and money by using a drone to measure the giant piles of rock and sand his company sells for construction.
The autonomous quadcopter can survey the entire 90-acre site in 25 minutes. Previously, the company hired a contractor who would take a whole day to measure the piles with a truck-mounted laser.
The drone is made by Silicon Valley-based Kespry, which converts the survey data into detailed 3-D maps and charges an annual subscription fee for its services. The startup also provides drones and mapping services to insurance companies surveying homes damaged by natural disasters.
"Not only is it safer and faster, but you get more data, as much as ten to a hundred times more data," said Kespry CEO George Mathew. "This becomes a complete game changer for a lot of the industrial work that's being accomplished today."
At Built Robotics, Ready-Campbell, the company's founder and CEO, envisions the future of construction work as a partnership between humans and smart machines.
"The robots basically do the 80 percent of the work, which is more repetitive, more dangerous, more monotonous," he said. "And then the operator does the more skilled work, where you really need a lot of finesse and experience."
Built Robotics recently used its automated bulldozer — retrofitted with sensors and autonomous driving technology — to grade the earth on a construction site in San Jose. The project allows the startup to both test its technology and generate some revenue.
"I'm very excited about where autonomous machines could be used in our industry," said Kyle Trew, a contractor who worked with Built Robotics on the San Jose project. "Hopefully I can use this as a tool to get an edge on some of my competitors."