The following excerpt was taken from an article in KTRH posted by Audrey Morton:
Marek Construction Companies CEO Stan Marek said the construction industry will be extremely busy this year.
"The residential industry has a lot of multi-family and single-family housing coming up. The medical center has about over $4 billion worth of work planned for the next 18 months," said Marek.
He said highway construction will be busy. However there will be a continuation of construction starts of new schools throughout the entire greater Houston area.
Houston Contractors Association Executive Director Jeff Nielsen said they’ll be busy.
“In civil construction, we’re estimating there’s going to be about somewhere between $10 and $15 billion over the next 15 to 20 years in the Greater Houston area,” said Nielsen. “That type of construction would include roads, bridges, water, sewer, storm sewer, flood control, anything that’s built for the city, the county or the state.”
But, will there be enough workers to make all this happen?
"We are going to see a real shortage of skilled labor. After 50 years of being in this business, I'm anticipating the biggest labor shortage we've ever seen," said Marek.
He said negative things like SB4 "Show Me Your Papers" (legal and illegal immigrants leaving the state, plus high school students not going into this field) has impacted the construction population.