7 ms·

Construction Employment Is At Its Lowest Level Since 1946

13 points by mattobrien 14y ago

deleted 14y ago
[deleted]
minwcnt5 14y ago
Curiously, in Canada the construction industry is experiencing the exact opposite effect and is at an all-time high: http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-05-31/canadian-building-jobs-boom-while-u-s-busts-chart-of-the-day.html http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-05-31/canadian-building-j...
- cgh 14y ago
  Construction employment in Canada is high for the same reason it was high in the US in 2006. Can you guess what that is? Hint: it eventually goes "pop".
joshuahedlund 14y ago
I don't think this is "depressing". I see a post-WWII boom that was followed by a long downward trend that was temporarily broken by the housing bubble and is now continuing. In other words, for the last 50 years we have been figuring out how to build things with fewer people, freeing them up to do other things, and I see no reason why that will not continue or why we should wish that it should not.
- gmkoliver 14y ago
  Exactly; even though the article mentions the meaning of the graph, it seems to misinterpret it anyway. From my perspective as a residential carpenter I see a continuing decline in the cost of labor combined with increases in efficiency due to new materials and equipment. Combine that with the high price of land in most urban areas, and I don't see much incentive for the big home builders to push manufactured homes and on-site automated fabrication.
- greenyoda 14y ago
  Also, the reference to 1946 is a bit sensationalistic, considering that the current percentage is actually very close to where it was after the previous decline in the 1990s. The boom-bust cycle of housing construction seems to be a pattern that repeats itself on a regular basis, and the current cycle is shaped pretty much like the others.
WalterBright 14y ago
When I watch crews build a house, I am struck by how resistant this activity has been to automation and mass production techniques. A truck will drive up to the site with a stack of lumber on it. Workers will individual measure, cut, and fit the pieces together. Wiring is all eyeballed by the electrian, and custom fit. The same for plumbing. Finish carpentry is all done piece by piece, by skilled craftsmen, and all hand fitted (and are a huge component of the expense of a house). It all seems ripe for a revolution. I'm not suggesting that houses be all cookie-cutter identical. But a custom design could largely be built in a factory, trucked in, and then you'd just have final assembly done on site. The result would be higher quality and lower cost (and less labor). You can see some of this with roof trusses today, which are custom built in a factory and then trucked to the site.
- bitwize 14y ago
  Unions probably have a lot to do with this in the United States. I seem to recall footage of a building-erecting robot in Japan. Basically it was a frame that went up and down on four pillars, with an armature that could move in two dimensions on the frame, almost like a "UFO catcher" or crane game machine.
  - gigawhat 14y ago
    I am Bender. Please insert girder.
  - krschultz 14y ago
    Unions haven't really impacted the residential home building market. I don't think onsite automation will help much. Most of the easily automated steps (foundation laying, framing, roofing, sheetrocking) are actually outsourced by the general contractor to specialized subcontractors. They can frame out a house in a week easily and are very efficient. It's simply not worth all the effort of programming computer manufacturing instructions and setting up a machine to automate the construction of a house becuase it doesn't take long. The painful/expensive/time consuming part of building a house is the 'finishing'. Hanging windows, installing the kitchen, doing plumbing, etc. Making a machine do all of that just isn't worth it. (Some offsite automation like bringing in pre built roof supports or foundation forms makes sense, but that is already happening.) On the commercial side, unions are heavily entrenched. You absolutely can not build a sky scraper without heavy involvement from the metal workers trade union, the electricians union, etc. There is a lot of waste there. I could see automation on the commercial side, but not really on the residential side. Also working against you - construction workers are cheap right now. The unemployement is due to lack of demand, not the cost of building. We can't even fill already built buildings.
camiller 14y ago
While I can't say for sure with regards to residential construction, but the amount of NEW never leased business/retail space around here is staggering. I've seen several small to medium strip centers go up in the last five years just along routes I drive daily (or at least a few times a week) and much if it is sitting vacant having never had a tenant. Several have a single tenant with 3-7 empty bays.
jf271 14y ago
I'm thankful that the construction companies have enough sense to not build more new houses when the is a 6-12 backlog in existing houses. This kind of common sense isn't common in the USA.

13 points by mattobrien 14y ago

deleted 14y ago

[deleted]

Curiously, in Canada the construction industry is experiencing the exact opposite effect and is at an all-time high: http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-05-31/canadian-building-jobs-boom-while-u-s-busts-chart-of-the-day.html http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-05-31/canadian-building-j...

cgh 14y ago
Construction employment in Canada is high for the same reason it was high in the US in 2006. Can you guess what that is? Hint: it eventually goes "pop".

joshuahedlund 14y ago

I don't think this is "depressing". I see a post-WWII boom that was followed by a long downward trend that was temporarily broken by the housing bubble and is now continuing. In other words, for the last 50 years we have been figuring out how to build things with fewer people, freeing them up to do other things, and I see no reason why that will not continue or why we should wish that it should not.

gmkoliver 14y ago
Exactly; even though the article mentions the meaning of the graph, it seems to misinterpret it anyway. From my perspective as a residential carpenter I see a continuing decline in the cost of labor combined with increases in efficiency due to new materials and equipment. Combine that with the high price of land in most urban areas, and I don't see much incentive for the big home builders to push manufactured homes and on-site automated fabrication.
greenyoda 14y ago
Also, the reference to 1946 is a bit sensationalistic, considering that the current percentage is actually very close to where it was after the previous decline in the 1990s. The boom-bust cycle of housing construction seems to be a pattern that repeats itself on a regular basis, and the current cycle is shaped pretty much like the others.

WalterBright 14y ago

When I watch crews build a house, I am struck by how resistant this activity has been to automation and mass production techniques. A truck will drive up to the site with a stack of lumber on it. Workers will individual measure, cut, and fit the pieces together. Wiring is all eyeballed by the electrian, and custom fit. The same for plumbing. Finish carpentry is all done piece by piece, by skilled craftsmen, and all hand fitted (and are a huge component of the expense of a house). It all seems ripe for a revolution. I'm not suggesting that houses be all cookie-cutter identical. But a custom design could largely be built in a factory, trucked in, and then you'd just have final assembly done on site. The result would be higher quality and lower cost (and less labor). You can see some of this with roof trusses today, which are custom built in a factory and then trucked to the site.

bitwize 14y ago
Unions probably have a lot to do with this in the United States. I seem to recall footage of a building-erecting robot in Japan. Basically it was a frame that went up and down on four pillars, with an armature that could move in two dimensions on the frame, almost like a "UFO catcher" or crane game machine.
- gigawhat 14y ago
  I am Bender. Please insert girder.
- krschultz 14y ago
  Unions haven't really impacted the residential home building market. I don't think onsite automation will help much. Most of the easily automated steps (foundation laying, framing, roofing, sheetrocking) are actually outsourced by the general contractor to specialized subcontractors. They can frame out a house in a week easily and are very efficient. It's simply not worth all the effort of programming computer manufacturing instructions and setting up a machine to automate the construction of a house becuase it doesn't take long. The painful/expensive/time consuming part of building a house is the 'finishing'. Hanging windows, installing the kitchen, doing plumbing, etc. Making a machine do all of that just isn't worth it. (Some offsite automation like bringing in pre built roof supports or foundation forms makes sense, but that is already happening.) On the commercial side, unions are heavily entrenched. You absolutely can not build a sky scraper without heavy involvement from the metal workers trade union, the electricians union, etc. There is a lot of waste there. I could see automation on the commercial side, but not really on the residential side. Also working against you - construction workers are cheap right now. The unemployement is due to lack of demand, not the cost of building. We can't even fill already built buildings.

camiller 14y ago

While I can't say for sure with regards to residential construction, but the amount of NEW never leased business/retail space around here is staggering. I've seen several small to medium strip centers go up in the last five years just along routes I drive daily (or at least a few times a week) and much if it is sitting vacant having never had a tenant. Several have a single tenant with 3-7 empty bays.

jf271 14y ago

I'm thankful that the construction companies have enough sense to not build more new houses when the is a 6-12 backlog in existing houses. This kind of common sense isn't common in the USA.