Dive Brief:
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The proposed $1 trillion U.S. infrastructure plan could create as many as 3 million jobs if projects are prioritized for optimal job generation, according to a Boston Consulting Group report.
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However, if project planners focus only on the critical nature of each project and do not factor in the potential for job growth, then the same $1 trillion investment could generate just 1.6 million new jobs.
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Projects that yield the most jobs are airports, seaports and hospitals because they employ temporary construction workers and offer more post-completion permanent jobs than other infrastructure projects, such as a non-tolled highway.
Dive Insight:
One example of this job-creation potential is the $494 million Sanford Medical Center that Mortenson recently completed in Fargo, ND. The project took five years to build and employed 42,000 construction workers. Now that the hospital is complete, it will provide more than 3,000 staff jobs.
To assist planners in tracking infrastructure-related job creation, BCG has created the US Infrastructure Jobs Scoreboard, which provides information on job categories, employee pay and location of jobs throughout the country. The tool can held predict the effect of new infrastructure projects on indirect and direct job creation. BCG's goal is to help those in charge of deciding what the next big infrastructure initiative will be to compare projects and determine which ones will have the most impact on job creation.
In the current construction workforce environment, however, job creation may not be the biggest concern. The construction industry is struggling to meet its current staffing needs. Throwing millions of new jobs into the mix could, according to industry experts, case massive delays and cost overruns.
Contractors are already stretching out completion schedules or passing up new jobs altogether as they fight to keep an adequate number of skilled workers on staff, according to the Associated General Contractors of America. An AGC report earlier this year found that 73% of employers anticipated hiring more workers this year and expected to have difficulty doing so.
Industry organizations have called on federal, state and local governments to help fund more career training programs, both secondary and post-secondary, in an effort to fill the need.
Whether Trump's $1 trillion infrastructure plan will come to fruition at all has yet to be determined. In the most recent development surrounding the highly touted proposal, the Trump administration's proposed tax reform bill lacks an anticipated funding mechanism for infrastructure spending.