Pilot Study for Understanding a Contributing Factor for a Decrease in Skilled Construction Labor

10 pages•Published: September 25, 2020

Abstract

The construction industry has and will continue to see skilled labor shortages. The most critical shortage of staffing is at the building level, which is comprised of skilled construction craft workers. Societal pressures for higher education appear to exacerbate this shortage. To further understand the decrease of skilled construction labor, a pilot study of 53 high school students was conducted. The survey was conducted on 17 to 18- year-old students who will be graduating high school within the next one to two years. The results of the survey point to the societal view that higher education is of utmost importance to students and their families. Furthermore, the results showed that construction is not given positive consideration or seen as a valuable alternative to higher education. Parents and children deem the pursuit of higher education as the way to become financially successful and have a rewarding career.

Keyphrases: careers, construction jobs, labor, work force development

In: Tom Leathem (editor). Associated Schools of Construction Proceedings of the 56th Annual International Conference, vol 1, pages 390-399.

Links:	https://easychair.org/publications/paper/Fp57
	https://doi.org/10.29007/ck6c

BibTeX entry

@inproceedings{ASC2020:Pilot_Study_Understanding_Contributing,
  author    = {Brent Buckner and William Bender},
  title     = {Pilot Study for Understanding a Contributing Factor for a Decrease in Skilled Construction Labor},
  booktitle = {Associated Schools of Construction Proceedings of the 56th Annual International Conference},
  editor    = {Tom Leathem},
  series    = {EPiC Series in Built Environment},
  volume    = {1},
  publisher = {EasyChair},
  bibsource = {EasyChair, https://easychair.org},
  issn      = {2632-881X},
  url       = {/publications/paper/Fp57},
  doi       = {10.29007/ck6c},
  pages     = {390-399},
  year      = {2020}}

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