Few construction professionals are more familiar with today’s infrastructure crisis than the staffers of the country’s various departments of public works—and few are more misunderstood.
After five years of litigation related to repercussions of safety whistleblowing at the Hanford federal nuclear waste cleanup site, former URS Corp. engineering manager Walter Tamosaitis has reached a $4.1-million settlement with AECOM, which bought the firm last October.
About 50 middle school students from a Las Vegas public school technical academy kicked off the summer with a three-day stay at an engineering students camp in Mount Vernon, Wash.
Photo courtesy of U.S. Dept. of Labor Perez says overtime pay regulation reforms are overdue. The Obama administration and Labor Secretary Thomas Perez intend to rewrite the rules on overtime pay, which generally protect carpenters and drywall installers and laborers. A little-noticed lawsuit under the existing rules, however, involves non-craft construction project staff — and the distinction about who is exempt and who is eligible for overtime pay.In late June, President Barack Obama announced a proposed rule change that raises the threshold above which white-collar employees may be exempt from overtime pay, from $455 per week to $970 per week.
Related Links: Bureau of Labor statistics release with data tables AGC Chief Economist Ken Simonson's comments and analysis ABC Chief Economist Anirban Basu's comments and analysis As the construction industry moves into the heart of its building season, its unemployment rate continues to fall and its workforce is increasing, the Bureau of Labor Statistics’ latest monthly report shows.The BLS employment report for July, released on Aug. 7, says that construction’s jobless rate dropped to 5.5% from June’s 6.3%, and also was down markedly from the year-earlier level of 7.5%. The rates aren’t adjusted for seasonal variations. BLS also reported that
Image courtesy of ABC University of Central Missouri graduate Brandon Moore is making a name for himself as a welder in Texas. Brandon Moore has an unusual job for someone with a degree in philosophy. A graduate of the University of Central Missouri, Moore works as a welder for Jacobs Field Services, a contractor at an ExxonMobil refinery in Baytown, Texas. Although he says he enjoyed his time in college, he questions the market value of his education and wonders what might have happened had he spent four years traveling the world instead of grinding away over the works of
Related Links: Reuters: Qatar building boom proves a challenge for foreign construction firms Construction workers from India and Nepal are believed to make up the largest contingent of migrants in Qatar, building an estimated $150 billion worth of buildings and infrastructure in the ambitious Gulf nation over the next decade.But even as global media and organizations speculate on poor—some say slavery-like—working conditions and other risk factors that they say have spiked fatalities over the past several years, home-country governments are mixed in their responses to the plight of their expatriates.Of the estimated 1.5 million workers in the country, 600,000 come
Related Links: Bureau of Labor statistics release with data tables AGC Chief Economist Ken Simonson's analysis ABC Chief Economist Anirban Basu's analysis Construction's total workforce was flat in June, but the industry's unemployment rate declined from May's level and showed strong year-over-year improvement, the Bureau of Labor Statistics said.The latest BLS report on the nation's employment picture, released on July 2, showed that construction's June jobless rate edged down to 6.3% from the previous month's 6.7%.June's figure also was markedly better than 8.2% a year previously, marking the 57th straight month of year-over-year jobless-rate decreases for the industry. The BLS
Related Links: Construction's Jobless Rate Keeps Falling in May Getting Down To Business After a nearly two-year hiring freeze, the Naval Facilities Engineering Command is aggressively recruiting to fill nearly 3,000 positions this year across the U.S., particularly in engineering and procurement slots.NAVFAC's ability to recruit and hire has been severely hampered since 2013, when the federal government underwent sequestration and a shutdown, says Jennifer LaTorre, NAVFAC executive director.After furloughs and two years of attrition, the agency that handles construction for the Navy and Marine Corps has a vacancy rate of roughly 14% globally. These factors created the need to
Photo Courtesy of Mat-Su Borough \A $120-million rail link at Port MacKenzie, near Anchorage, is set to follow local-hire rule. Related Links: Gov. Bill Walker: Why I'm restoring Alaska Hire requirements With continuing oil-price impacts on Alaska jobs and a looming state budget impasse that could send thousands of public employees to the unemployment line, Gov. Bill Walker (I) on June 10 reinstated a 90% local-hire rule for state-funded construction projects. The rule, which would affect both blue- and white-collar jobs, is drawing a mixed reaction from local contractors.According to Walker, a governor is allowed to restore the rule if