“The Great Resignation,” shorthand for apparently record high numbers of people quitting their jobs in 2021, may be buffeting the construction sector.
U.S. Department of Labor Bureau of Labor Statistics numbers released in early January reveal that the construction industry logged an estimated 207,000 seasonally adjusted quits in November 2021, the highest level going back five months and 27% higher than in November 2020.
The quit rate for November 2021 was 2.7% of total sector employment (well below the 3.4% total private sector workforce quit rate), up from 2.2% a year earlier, and a level last reached in February 2019, according to the Federal Reserve Economic Data (FRED) database. Its numbers show the post-pandemic quit rate bottomed out at 1.3% in August 2020, climbing to 2.7% in March 2021 before falling back and resuming its ascent. FRED data also show the industry quit rate has climbed steadily over the last decade-plus from a low of 0.7% registered in August 2009, adding fuel to consistent 60%-plus annual turnover rates.
Other research bears out the FRED data. Mischa Fisher, chief economist at Angi, which recently released its 2021 Skilled Trades in America study based on a survey of 2,400 skilled tradespeople, says the sector is seeing an uptick in voluntary separations.
“Workers in the trades are quitting at a 23% higher rate now than they were before the pandemic,” she says.
And research done for ResumeBuilder.com in August 2021 found 13% of workers currently employed in construction said they were planning to quit their jobs before the end of 2021, slightly below 15% of the sample of 1,250 workers.
Quitting, of course, doesn’t mean that workers are leaving the field in droves; many are probably finding new jobs that offer better pay and benefits, a reality of the current tight job market. But it’s likely that a fair number are leaving to retire or switch careers, given that the average age of the skilled tradespeople segment is 42, 10% older than the general population, according to the Angi research.
The steady aging of an experienced workforce has long been on the industry’s list of chronic worries, and the current broad workforce upheaval may bring those concerns into sharper and more immediate focus. Participating in a recent Associated General Contractors webcast discussing AGC’s 2021 Workforce Survey, Brett Strassel, vice president of operations at Hedrick Brothers Construction, West Palm Beach, Fla., said labor shortages extending down through the subcontractor ranks are acute and reiterated the significance of what the industry is facing now and longer term.
“When you walk onto a job site, and you go across the board and you look at superintendents, that is an aging group of people that really causes us concern about what does the next 10 years look like,” he said. “How do we train, mentor, and grow people into those roles?”
The current wave of turnover, though nothing especially foreign given construction’s consistent 60%-plus annual turnover rates, is unsettling in that context and underscores the urgency of mapping strategies to recruit new blood at all levels of the industry.
A hopeful note, however, is the trades may be emerging as a compelling career choice and that despite the current quitting trend, those who elect to stay and enter may be committed.
“After 20 years of construction tradespeople quitting at a higher rate than the rest of the economy, that relationship has now reversed,” says Fisher. “For the first time in 20 years, construction tradespeople are quitting at a rate that’s about 10% lower than it is for other industries. This could be in large part because of higher job satisfaction in the trades.”
