News: Land Subdivision Employment Down
J. Keith Maxwell, PE, PLS
Lately I'm Focused on ALTA Surveying but I also Help Fellow Surveyors & Engineers Get Work | SEO Expert | Civil Engineer | Surveyor
From an article today in USA Today, Land subdivision employment is down over the last 10 years:
- Employment change 2007-2016: -56.0%
- Employment total: 40,814
- Wage growth 2007-2016: 22.8% (Inflation rate = 19.0%)
- Avg. annual wage: $81,257
"Land subdivision involves dividing a large segment of land into smaller parcels, largely for the purpose of new home construction. Due in large part to industry consolidation and integration, as well as reduced demand for real estate in the wake of the recession and housing crisis, the industry shed 56% of its jobs in the past decade."
"While the U.S. housing market has been recovering in recent years, it has yet to return to its pre-crisis levels. There were only 1.2 million new housing starts in the United States in 2016, 13.4% less than the nearly 1.4 million housing starts in 2007."
As a comparison, the Newspaper publishing industry had only a 49.3% reduction in employment. It was somewhat surprising to me that our industry employment fell more. I know that this doesn't include other surveying related employment, and that subdivisions are directly related to the housing industry. I do recall that in 2007 I was putting out subdivision lots as fast as I could. Not so much these days.
Survey Manager at Morton & Pitalo, Inc.
7 年Residential subdivisions are our bread and butter. And I am buried in work - 2018 is shaping up to be a busy year. This is in the Sacramento area.
Owner, Professional Land Surveyor at 45th Parallel Geomatics, LLC
7 年The Portland, Oregon area has a lot of subdivisions going on. No idea what it was like pre-bubble bust though. My experience so far is that it's a tie between surveyors and engineers leading, but I haven’t been involved with them for very long.
RPLS, Poker player
7 年Apparently the Houston area is bucking the trends. We can’t get lots fast enough. Our only problem is surveyors no longer are the lead discipline anymore. Though we are the only one required to sign them.
Registered Land Surveyor, and owner at Azimuth Land Surveying INC
7 年I do probably 95% ALTA surveys with a few boundaries , and elevation certificates sprinkled in. I rarely do even a minor subdivision .
President at LCE Engineers, INC
7 年redeveloping old regional malls will be the new trend. large parking areas, near population areas and surrounding shopping, online shopping is killing these and the owners will need to rethink their position to get out of the debt burden. sites area already zoned and large scale infrastructure in place. plus if the picture is an example no wonder it is shrinking. what an incredible low imagination plain jane horrible looking development