Trade labor shortage frustrates homeowners

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Skilled trades employers posted over 200,000 job openings in April 2023.

A report from PeopleReady Skilled Trades, a job placement company, explains that postings for skilled labor far outpace the supply of qualified workers to fill them. Positions are open for entry-level production, assemblers and fabricators, and engineers. Emerging tech positions are also in demand as companies push to implement cutting-edge technologies.

The ever-growing need for skilled workers spares few trade industries. According to the 2023 Career Advancement in Manufacturing Report by Xometry and The Women in Manufacturing Association, 82% of manufacturing companies are experiencing a labor shortage.

Acute Industry Shortages

The construction workforce shortage tops more than half a million workers so far in 2023, according to Associated Builders and Contractors (ABC). An ABC model shows the industry needs to attract about 546,000 more workers. That number is in addition to the average pace of hiring needed to meet demand this year.

The shortages affect smaller projects, as well as large building construction. “We met with a contractor in mid-August, hoping to get a small deck built this fall,” says Ashley Pichea of RootedWanderings.com. “We’re now in his queue for mid-spring. The trade shortage is great for the ones doing the work. But it is frustrating for homeowners wanting to hire them.”

Electricians are also suffering from the effects of skilled labor shortages. Twenty years ago, the National Electrical Contractors Association accurately predicted an electrician shortage. In fact, the Associated General Contractors of America (AGC) named electricians as among the most challenging construction jobs to fill. Although finding skilled labor remains a problem across the entire construction industry, 79% of firms need help finding electricians, according to the AGC’s 2022 Workforce Survey.

According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS), the average age of electricians is about 41. This means the pool of qualified electricians will drain as retirees leave the workforce, with no one coming in to fill the gap.

According to the Pew Research Center data, early retirement increased in 2020 and 2021 during the pandemic. The workforce is slowly rebounding, with the BLS predicting more workers in 2030 than 2020, but the lack of incoming workers is a concern for industries that depend on skilled labor.

Behind The Shortage

Millennials and Gen Z aren’t as interested in the skilled trades. Misconceptions about the trades, mismatched skills, and the push for a college education tend to discourage younger generations from pursuing trade careers.

Matt DiBara, CEO of The Contractor Consultants, shared his thoughts on this issue. “The biggest challenge right now is the stigma around the skilled trades. There’s nothing overly exciting about working hard in today’s society. We live in a culture where the less you work, the cooler you are, and the more time you spend on vacation, the cooler you seem. If you go out with your friends and tell them you’re involved in a skilled trade like plumbing, there’s no excitement or prestige. It’s almost as if you should be embarrassed about it as if you’ve somehow made a wrong choice in your career path.”

The industry needs to replace retirees and get younger generations interested in the skilled trades. As electricity consumption grows year after year, electrician jobs are projected to grow by 9.1% between 2020 and 2030, according to the BLS. That’s 1.4% higher than the growth rate expected for all other occupations.

Addressing The Shortage

The demand for electricians, construction workers, and skilled tradespeople has remained unchanged. As the echoes of the pandemic fade, many manufacturers are looking to bring their manufacturing back from overseas.

According to a poll in collaboration with Forbes, Zometry, and polling firm John Zogby Strategies, 82% of CEOs have embraced or are embracing reshoring strategies — up significantly from 55% of CEOs in the previous January survey.

Efforts to attract talent are well underway across the country. The U.S. Department of Labor funds efforts to attract more women to trade careers, while some states offer tax credits and tuition support to businesses that hire and train apprentices. The National Association of Home Builders, a trade group network, has a Workforce Development outreach program to promote skilled trade careers.

The lack of heavy and tractor-trailer truck drivers is another shortage that affects everyday American life. It may be easy to forget the rigorous transportation process and the people who keep that transportation chugging along.

The industry needs more than 80,000 truck drivers to make up for the current shortage in America. Chris Spear, President and CEO of the American Trucking Association, told CNN. This shortage comes when U.S. ports already have a backlog of shipments, causing a massive ripple throughout the supply chain.

Importers don’t have enough drivers to move their cargo at all hours, so without drivers, the logjam at the port worsens. These bottlenecks could eventually result in price increases due to artificial scarcity.

Truck drivers move 71% of the U.S. economy’s goods but represent 4% of the vehicles on the road, Spear says. If nothing changes, the industry will face a shortage of 160,000 drivers by 2030.

These labor shortages affect people’s daily lives. Without the trades, the world grinds to a halt. Goods are not delivered to stores. Ships are stuck in port until workers offload their goods.

On a larger scale, the trades themselves suffer from these current shortages. Home repair becomes a slow, arduous process. Electricians, technicians, and home-builders have less time to do their work, since construction orders would pile up. Many would be juggling more clients than they can handle.

Even do-it-yourselfers are feeling the effects of labor shortages. Elise Armitage of What That Fab points out, “My husband and I bought our first home during the pandemic, and we’ve been working on house projects ever since. There have been a couple of large projects, like redoing our backyard and front yard to make it drought resistant, that have been on hold indefinitely due to how difficult it’s been to find contractors with availability, as well as astronomical prices for materials.”

One solution to solving this labor shortage is to encourage young people to consider skilled trades while they’re still in high school. Recruiters can emphasize starting out with little student loan debt, as well as the solid job market and continuing need for skilled labor. This results in stable, reliable employment, enabling young people to have the lives they want.

Skilled tradespeople build and maintain the foundations of an increasingly modern world — from roads and highways to homes, high-tension wires, and beyond. They are part of the current infrastructure.

This article was produced by Blue Collar Brain and syndicated by Wealth of Geeks.