Dive Brief:
- Wage research company PAS Inc. projects that construction executive pay will increase by approximately 4% in 2017, according to the Associated General Contractors of America.
- In what should come as no surprise, PAS found that companies with higher revenues pay more in executive compensation. However, in the infrastructure sector, the location and type of project was more influential in determining pay.
- The rise in pay projected for 2017 is comparable to last year's executive compensation increase of 3.9%.
Dive Insight:
Stepping outside of the executive suite, those who directly impact the construction costs of a project — including project managers, superintendents and skilled labor — are in short supply. Contractors are becoming more anxious about the prospect of finding and retaining enough workers, as evidenced by a recent AGC survey. The organization found that 73% of contractors anticipated needing to beef up their employee roster this year, but 73% also believed they would have trouble doing so given the limited supply of skilled workers.
One way contractors have tried to attract more employees is increasing pay. The AGC carried out another survey last summer and found that, of the 1,459 contractors who responded, 48% have increased pay for hourly tradesmen in response to the skilled labor shortage, and 54% expect they will have to continue to fight the battle for labor well into the future.
A National Association of Home Builders study last year also found that the labor shortage had resulted in 75% of builders paying higher employee wages, as well as more for subcontractor bids. Slightly than 33% charged customers more for homes as a way to recoup some of that cost, and slightly less than that number said the shortage caused them to fall behind in production schedules.