The hurricane-shattered Gulf Coast is a petri dish for construction’s national work force crisis. The issues are not new, but their concentration is unprecedented. Ever since Katrina and Rita cut through the area, industry firms have struggled to find enough labor and resources to perform demolition and emergency work in the region, while maintaining schedules for ongoing capital and infrastructure projects throughout the nation.
Insiders now fear that once residential construction kicks in to replace some or all of an estimated 200,000-plus homes lost, capital projects already booked for the Gulf’s huge oil and gas industry, combined with labor demands nationwide, will further strain work force capacity.