The Largest Global Industry With A Labor Problem

7% of global GDP and 8 % of the Global Employment. That’s the construction industry. Its big. It’s localized.?

Design can be done from afar. Some components can be fabricated a few hundred miles away. Most all the labor and product distribution is done locally.?

The manufacturing of components completed elsewhere. Assembly is then done on-site. Unless you have a pre-fab facility, which allows for some distance in the project.?

You see articles written about productivity and the lack of it in construction. A 10% gain over the last 25 years (globally) or even a decline in the US. And they go on to say just train more people. Move risk. Look long term rather than short term.

While these things sound nice, it’s clearly not from people in the industry. People joining the trades is a culture problem. The people from places like McKinsey who write these articles ?do not care about the trades. They don’t actually do anything to improve the industry either.?

When you know about the industry, you can see that they haven't worked in construction. When you've been in the industry you understand that the nature of projects is a reallocation of risk. Lawsuits are frequent in the industry. Leading people to taking measure to mitigate any future legal troubles. Most of which is doing things in their own best interest.

It’s not a hard concept to understand. People act in their own best interests. And thus the nature of risk on a construction project, should be in one's best interest. This is not cut and dry, which is hard for outsiders to understand.

On a project, using other metrics like tons of dirt moved or joints welded is all well and good. I’m for measuring things like too. However, one project could have little dirt moved, others massive amounts moved.?

One project could be a processing facility that only has welded pipe and another project of a different type could use compression. Now you have two different means and methods on two different projects, which measurement is correct??

Standards are great, but we also have different codes across different states and even cities within the state. Something that does create a difficulty in standards across the country.?

Just beware of this when you read these articles about the construction industry written by non-construction folks. It’s why Google and other tech companies who try and start construction companies decide they want no part of the industry.?

It’s too risky for them. They can’t handle the chaos and uncertainty. They don’t know how to scale or manage large work forces. It’s not their wheelhouse. Because it is a complicated industry with a lot of moving parts.?

Supply chain, labor management, distributed workforce, varied hours, mobile first technology on the Jobsite (if they even have service), government regulation, non-standard government review process, risk mitigation, safety factors. This just scratches the surface. And because of these hundreds of factors construction is difficult at scale.?

Do we need better training? Not per se, but we do need more people to come into the industry. Construction does have an attraction problem. If we can get in more talent, the better off we’ll be as an industry.?

This will relieve a lot of strain. And this goes for distribution, manufacturers reps, and the construction and design folks. We need them all. Everyone is hiring.?