March 15, 2010

Letter to the editor

U.S. construction unemployment could get even worse

Re: 38 states see double-digit drops in construction employment (dailycommercialnews.com, Mar. 10)

It’s not too difficult to see that we have not hit bottom yet as most of us are just finishing up the jobs that we bid and started last year.

Most of those jobs were contracted at the very beginning of the drop and, although they were bid with little or no profit, we are competing with companies taking work at less than reasonable cost now.

I can see general contractors running out of work and desperately searching for a job to keep the cash flow coming in. There is no private work to speak of, as you can buy one of the buildings standing empty for less than it would cost to build one.

The public works sector with the university, college and K-12 schools were keeping us busy, but they are running on empty in most cases now and the state is pulling the plug on some of those jobs.

The federal government is the only real source of new construction work at this time and the Obama administration has said that they intend to cut some of the military base realignment money for next year so it should be interesting to see how that affects everyone.

I would expect a lot worse unemployment figures for construction and no let up in sight for at least two years.

If the architects don’t have it on the drawing boards now, we won’t see it for at least a year and a half. I think the unemployment for construction will hit damn near 50 per cent before we see things start to turn around.

-Mark Barlow, operations manager, Best Interiors Inc

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