The Millennial generation will compose the majority of the construction workforce by 2018, according to the U.S. Census. They are entering in a torrent that can either infuse energy into firms or drown them. Each company will choose what happens by how it adapts to new styles of recruitment, management and retention.
Call them Millennials, Generation Y or Generation Next—all these names are used—but demographers interviewed by ENR and many Millennials themselves agreed the names all try to classify a distinctive group of Americans born after about 1980 who are part of a wave that continues today. Each year, this rising generation of construction professionals and craftspeople gets more relevant not only because of its growing numbers in the workforce but because of the singular qualities it brings. One key quality of Millennials is that they are digital natives—they barely remember the era before computers.