Key Demographic Trend

Retiring Boomers to Impact Construction Trades

By Elaine Schmidt

Baby boomers are about to start retiring from construction, raising a big question: Who is going to replace these skilled workers?

Liz Elvin, director of workforce development for the AGC of America, cited 2006 U.S. Census Bureau statistics that showed 60.8% of U.S. construction workers are over age 35 and 34.3% are over age 45.

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Dan Andrews, coordinator for the sheet metal training school of the Sheet Metal Workers Local 36 in St. Louis, knows what impending retirements mean to the 1,700 working members of his local:

“We are going to turn over half of our membership in the next seven to 12 years,” he says.

Impact on Small Firms

The urgency among small construction companies, such as Staab Construction Corp. in Marshfield, Wis., which has 60 field employees, might be greater in part because low turnover is often sought at these organizations as a competitive tool.

Staab is being proactive, working with schools and the Associated General Contractors of Wisconsin to recruit and train a new generation of workers.

“I think our biggest challenge is getting high school kids interested in our career,” says Dan Neve, Staab operations manager. “Unfortunately, construction, like the military, gets a tough knock in high schools: You either go to college or you go into construction or the military. That’s how it’s portrayed.”

Staab is working with the Architecture, Construction and Engineering Academy Technology Center, a two-year program at Marshfield High School, to make construction an attractive option.

It is also involved in a Wisconsin Department of Public Instruction pilot program that allows students to receive credits for paid work experience with a sponsoring contractor. Upon completion, the students go through a series of checkoffs with the contractor and the high school to get a state certificate of program completion.

“One of the selling points I use with the students is that the things we do in construction can’t be put in a container and shipped across the ocean,” Neve says. “We work on things that need to be built onsite by hand.”

Issues about Prestige, Economy, Pensions

Andrews see the issue of prestige at play in his recruitment efforts in St. Louis.

“Most families these days want their kids to go to college,” he says. “They don’t look at the trades as a viable alternative.” The problem has resulted in a partnership with a local junior college to offer an associates degree in applied science.

But there’s another issue at work: The economic downturn has hit the construction industry hard.

“When there’s no work, there’s no training,” Andrews says. When there are no jobs, there’s no place for the apprentices to gain experience.

And the downturn may actually be delaying retirements by a few years.

“When the economy recovers, this is going to be a major issue,” Andrews says, adding that the retirements will surge at that point but there will have been little apprentice training in anticipation.

Another concern is that most multiemployer pension funds are set up to function with a ratio of at least two working individuals for each one person collecting a pension. He says there is real danger of the trade unions reaching the one-to-one ratio in the coming years and the pensions going bust.

Different Views

Not everyone has a grim view about these demographic trends.

Brent Johnson, president and CEO of Ringland Johnson Construction in Rockford, Ill., is holding out hope for the effects of President Obama’s economic stimulus package to stimulate the economy.

Attrition and the economy might be other factors, Johnson says. More than half of Ringland’s workforce is old enough to retire in a “relatively short period of time,” and the recession might encourage retirements because the firm’s workforce has gone from 200 to 100 in recent months.

Other countries, such as Canada, Great Britain and Japan, are facing the same concerns about worker retirement. In Japan, where retirement age has long been 60, the problem was dubbed the “2007 problem” because that was the year the first retirement wave was expected to hit. The three countries are implementing workplace changes to keep workers working longer.

Other solutions being explored range from recruiting young workers to the trades, raising the retirement age, fostering mentoring relationships that allow older workers to pass on their experience and knowledge, and designing workstations and environments to make it physically possible for older workers to continue working past what might be a typical retirement age.

This might entail shifting older workers to jobs that require less lifting and physically stressful work; moving them to indoor work; raising work station height to reduce bending and lifting and moving them into oversight, instructional or mentoring roles.

Neve says retired construction workers in this country are finding new employment teaching in trade schools and apprenticeship programs.

“Construction is where job security is going to in the future, which is going to make the skilled trades more valuable and more desirable,” Neve says.

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