While contractor staff salaries are static and salary increases have reached record-low levels, recruiters say hiring is improving modestly. Heavy industrial, highway and heavy civil construction are showing positive signs, with compensation requests from wind and solar, says Jeff Robinson, president of construction-compensation consultant Personnel Administration Services Inc., Saline, Mich.
In the depressed residential housing sector, 35% of firms predict freezing pay in 2011, compared to only 12% in industrial construction, Robinson says. Overall, about a quarter of contractors surveyed are planning pay freezes, he says.