Union contractors, labor representatives, and other stakeholders in the unionized sector of the construction and maintenance industry expressed continued but reduced optimism regarding growth in early 2021 as compared to early 2020, according to the 2021 Union Craft Labor Supply Study recently released by The Association of Union Constructors (TAUC) and the Construction Labor Research Council (CLRC).
“Last year, this study occurred just prior to the advent of the Coronavirus pandemic. This year, the data reflect nearly a year of living with the pandemic,” the report explains. “Thus, the results from last year’s study compared to this year provide a clean ‘before (and) after’ look at the data.’”
Although the percent of survey respondents projecting growth fell by 13 percent, about two-thirds of respondents did project growth. The report observes that “what makes the findings about growth projections stand out is that they are not lower than they are, given the challenges the construction and maintenance industry faces: a pandemic, union craft labor shortage, increasing cost of materials, logistics challenges, etc.”
Survey respondents also indicated that, while the shortage of union craft workers continues, it lessened somewhat in both 2019 and 2020. This was consistent across all geographic regions, with the largest gains (fewer reported shortages) in the South Central (Arkansas, Louisiana, New Mexico, Oklahoma, Texas) and Northwest (Alaska, Idaho, Oregon, Washington) Regions. It was also largely true across crafts, with a reported decrease in worker shortages in 10 of 14 crafts. The crafts with the most frequently reported shortages experienced in 2020 were the Carpenters and Millwrights along with the Electricians, as was also the case in 2019.
This year’s study added some new features, including data about the funding status of pension funds. About 41.1 percent of survey respondents said that their funds were adequately funded, about 48 percent expressed some degree of concern over funding (ranging from small to large concern), and 10.8 percent said they did not know. Other new topics were data on the impact of portability and on the impact of the Coronavirus pandemic on meeting craft staffing needs.