Dive Brief:
- FMI, the consulting firm that gathers and disseminates information about the construction industry, thinks that oil and gas production will employ 10% of the U.S. construction workforce in 2017.
- Oil and gas slowed little during the recession and has kept growing fast as other sectors recover slowly.
- Energy production employed 3.8% of construction workers in 2008 and was up to 6.4% by 2012, FMI found.
Dive Insight:
Having a sector that is sucking up available construction workers at the rate that energy is might be a blessing for the rest of construction. Perhaps it will encourage some of the workers who quit construction because of the economic mess to try coming back and will help ease the worker shortage builders and contractors are beginning to feel.