Oregon’s construction industry lost another 1,900 jobs from October to November, according to the .

The 2.9 percent drop, from 66,300 to 64,400, continues what has been a rocky year for construction companies.

From November 2009 to November 2010 the industry lost 5,000 jobs, which marks a 7.2 percent reduction in workforce. The state ranked 46 out of 51 states and the District of Columbia for the percentage of jobs lost in that time.

The numbers, though they are seasonally adjusted, could be due to the cyclical nature of the construction industry, said John Killin, executive director of Associated Builders and Contractors of Oregon.

Also, companies have continued to get leaner as the recession has continued over the past few years, he said.

“Honestly I can’t say I’m surprised that we’re one of the lowest ranked in the nation,” Killin said. “I’m conservatively optimistic for 2011, but talking to my counterparts in other states, they agree that Oregon has been hit harder.”

The post Construction sheds 1,900 jobs in November appeared first on Daily Journal of Commerce.

Editor’s note: The Daily Journal of Commerce this month is examining changes for the American workforce as baby boomers start to retire. Today, the 91视频 looks at the architecture industry. See also: Construction, Energy, Real estate

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Experience is essential in the architecture field. That is why architecture students are required to intern for three years before taking their licensing exam, how architects gain the trust of clients and build the reputation of their firms, and why baby boomer principals are so valued.

These days, experience also is elusive. Even as business improves, hires remain few and far between; and while firms prepare for the loss of older talent, a growing number of young professionals are struggling to gain the necessary experience to establish a foothold in the field.

“I’ve been here long enough now to watch how things go up and down in cycles,” said Saundra Stevens, executive vice president of the American Institute of Architects’ Portland chapter. “And this is a tough time for architecture professionals in Oregon.”

Architecture and engineering have mirrored the downtrend in construction, shedding jobs consistently for more than two years. In Oregon, the sector employed 11,800 in February, down from 15,600 in late 2007, according to the Oregon Employment Department.

Stevens noticed a nationwide talent drain three or four years ago, when baby boomer architects began retiring. But those worries were clouded over by the recession.

It’s still a concern, and according to the 2009 Boston College Sloan Center’s survey on aging and work, 40 percent of organizations surveyed believe the exodus of older workers could create a talent drain and potentially disturb their business by 2012.

Jonah Cohen, managing principal of THA Architecture, believes that transition is the main concern.

“When you have an established practice, you identify the people who you think are future leaders of the firm 10 years before you want them to be fully in control. Then there is an orderly process of exposing them to the skills and stresses you need to lead the firm. You don’t just drop them in a vat of oil; you slowly introduce them so they have the skills to take on leadership.”

In order to do this, current leaders need to make delegation a priority, Cohen said. “A lot of firms make the mistake of saying, 鈥業’ve been doing it all along so I know what’s best.’ But that’s not going to nurture the next generation.”

Jeff Myhre, president and cofounder of Myhre Group Architects, says his firm won’t face a difficult ownership transition, but it will need to transition relationships with clients. While most firms’ founders are in their late 70s and early 80s, Myhre is only in his mid 40s, and the greater part of his staffers are in their 40s and 50s.

“I do have some baby boomers on staff and when they decide to retire, it’s going to be a loss. They’ve got really great relationships that go back a long way. You have to appropriately transition those relationships or risk losing them,” Myhre said.

Another potential challenge with baby boomer retirements is the added pressure on younger people to perform at higher levels of leadership positions, Myhre said.

“Guys like me in their mid 40s are going to be required to take on more leadership responsibility than the prior generation did; the guy that became the president of his company traditionally at age 50 – well now that person might be 40 or 45.”

One question is whether enough young people will enter the field to eventually take on that responsibility. While established architects may be worried about transition troubles related to baby boomer retirements, the bigger problem may be absorbing a new generation into the workforce. And in a sluggish economy, firms aren’t rushing to hire personnel.

“There was a real concern that there weren’t enough architects in the profession, and that was the number one topic on everyone’s minds five years ago before the recession hit hard,” Stevens said. “I still think that it’s is a valid concern for firm principals.”

Stevens remembers a similar worry voiced during the recession of the early 1980s, when there was speculation about a “lost generation” of architects who couldn’t find employment after college, pursued work in other professions and didn’t come back.

Presently, there is no shortage of students pursuing degrees. Total enrollment in the architecture department at the University of Oregon has increased from 634 to only 683 in the past five years because of limited space; however, applications have increased from 607 in 2006 to 808 in 2009, according to Helga Wood, admissions adviser for the department.

The Portland State University architecture program, with a current enrollment of 300, has also seen growth in the number of applicants; the program has become more competitive as a result, according to Maggie Maxwell, communications coordinator for the department.

But a diploma does not equal a job, or even an internship, in today’s economy; and the competition does not stay in the classroom.

Neither UO nor PSU has a formal internship placement program. Students must research their options, Maxwell said.

And finding internship opportunities and jobs in the Portland area is easier said than done, according to Michael Fifield, a UO architecture professor.

“A few years ago, all of our grads were getting jobs right away. This past year, there are still a lot of people who graduated in June who don’t have a job in architecture,” Fifield said.

Like most architecture firms in the Portland area, Myhre Group Architects has not done much hiring in the past couple of years. And competition for internship positions is extreme.

“We take the best and brightest,” Myhre said. “Employers can be choosy.”

With younger architects out of work, the fear is that many will leave the field out of necessity, which would in turn create a future imbalance of talent at different levels of development.

“They will get into other professions, and 10 years from now there will be a shortage of people who are in the middle of architecture careers,” Cohen said. “With a great downturn, it becomes like a lost generation, and that can make it hard.”

Ankrom Moisan is one firm working to improve its internship program, one of the first things it let slip when the economy got rough. But Ruth Lloyd, an office manager and administrative principal at Ankrom Moisan, said the firm will look to rehire employees it let go before it seeks new talent.

Ankrom intern Chris Lewis, who was let go in February 2009 because of a lack of hospitality projects, was rehired in October and said his views and priorities have since changed.

“The biggest responsibility of a firm is to train the next generation of architects,” Lewis said. “We need to get the younger generation in. Right now you’ve got boomers that are looking to retire but can’t because of financial reasons. The firm as a whole can use them as resources, but there are firms that are top-heavy in terms of experience, with not as many new graduates to mentor.”

And with the hardships that piggyback a recession, many Ankrom Moisan architects who reach retirement age choose to simply work less, according to Lloyd.

“To a large degree, they stay with us even after they’ve 鈥榪uit,’ ” Lloyd said. “I think it gives them enough time to help them mentor the younger group that will be taking over.”

Other firms have already taken on the challenge of mentoring despite tough economic times. SUM Design Studio has made a strong effort to get Portland State University architecture students in the office. The firm plans to take on a new intern every six months.

“We like the idea of fresh ideas and helping people in the architecture school understand about the reality of the work environment, and it’s something we’re trying to do more of,” cofounder Eric Hoffman said.

THA Architecture has five interns and a formal mentorship program involving all employees.

Faster-than-average job growth is expected for architects through the year 2016. According to a report by the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, the field is projected to see 23,000 new jobs nationwide – 18 percent growth – over the next six years.

Stevens said graduates are visiting the American Institute of Architects office to post their information on job boards and taking advantage of a national AIA membership. The number of people engaging in Emerging Professionals Committee classes, which provide licensing exam study help, and the number of architects getting licensed have also increased in 2010, according to Stevens.

“These are little glimmers (of hope) that graduates aren’t giving up; they’re just working harder and using the resources we have available here for them,” Stevens said.

The cycle of retirements and new hires, after all, will never end.

“We joke when we see some incredible young intern with amazing skills and realize that we might be working for them someday,” Cohen said.

The post Architects design the industry’s future appeared first on Daily Journal of Commerce.

Editor’s note: The Daily Journal of Commerce this month is examining changes for the American workforce as baby boomers start to retire. Today, the 91视频 looks at the real estate industry. See also: Construction, Energy, Architecture

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Brian Owendoff is an anomaly in the commercial real estate industry. At age 41, and with 20 years of experience, the managing director at CB Richard Ellis doesn’t have many professional peers.

The commercial real estate workforce is concentrated in two age groups: baby boomers in their 50s and 60s and young professionals in their late 20s and early 30s, with few others in between. And as baby boomers prepare to retire, both local and national real estate professionals believe the industry will be significantly short of experienced professionals able to drive it into the future.

“Commercial real estate was not a popular career choice in the late 1980s and early 1990s after the savings and loan crisis as well as the creation of the Resolution Trust (Corp.),” Owendoff said. “Across the United States, there are few late 30 to mid 40 real estate professionals with 20-plus years in the business.”

The trend of concentration started in 1986, after the Tax Reform Act, which dramatically changed the income tax structure, especially for brokers, according to Chris Lee, president of CEL & Associates, a Los Angeles-based real estate strategizing firm. Younger people tended to avoid the industry, and the workforce never caught up with the real estate boons that followed, he said. The industry was carried by aging baby boomers and technological advances that allowed fewer people to accomplish more work, Lee added.

Now that aging generation is being joined by young workers not discouraged by the recent recession. According to data from the National Association of Industrial and Office Properties, a commercial real estate industry organization, despite a decline in memberships, the number of members under age 35 has increased significantly over the past two years. They represent a third of all new members – almost double the percentage from the previous decade.

Gerry Mildner, director of Portland State University’s Center for Real Estate, said there was a shift in how younger people perceived real estate following booms in the 1990s and 2000s.

“Real estate started being viewed as a physical investment that could compete with other financial investments,” he said. “That’s when college kids started looking at real estate as a viable career choice and colleges started offering degrees in it.”

But about 4 million baby boomers are expected to retire per year through 2025, according to the U.S. Department of Labor. It also estimates that 3.6 million new workers age 21 to 25 will enter the workplace each year, starting in 2015. That leaves a shortage of 400,000 workers each year.

With this data, and the fact that workers on average are older in the real estate profession than in others, CEL & Associates estimates that by 2015 the industry could face a shortage of 15,000 to 25,000 qualified workers per year.

Compounding this problem is that the baby boomers are leading the industry. CEL & Associates also estimates that by 2020, 65 percent of senior leaders in the real estate industry will be retired or on their way.

“There’s going to be a shortage of talent to fill the replacement jobs, even on the young end,” Lee said. “But what will be really interesting is to see who transitions into the leadership roles.”

Because of a shallow talent pool, Owendoff expects this problem to start arising in Portland earlier than most cities, perhaps around 2015.

The Portland-metro area’s real estate industry saw a 23 percent drop in employment from peak to trough in the last decade, according to the Oregon Employment Department. That is about the same as the national average. But commercial real estate didn’t suffer as much here as other places, so as Portland begins to recover, there could be increased pressure to create jobs.

Mildner said this pressure is inevitable and led to creation of a master’s degree in real estate development at PSU.

Dave Squire, managing director at Grubb & Ellis, said the industry may benefit by young adults quickly moving into leadership roles.

“There are definitely some things in this industry that can only be learned through experience and building relationships,” he said. “But I don’t necessarily subscribe to the notion that just because someone has been around longer they are smarter, especially because of how much things are changing.”

Lee doesn’t know what will happen, but he said change is coming.

“It will be interesting to see what happens once the baby boomers start retiring,” he said. “When it happens it’s going to be an exciting time for the industry and the young people in it.”

The post Age gap approaches in real estate workforce appeared first on Daily Journal of Commerce.

More colleges these days are beginning to offer both undergraduate and graduate degrees in real estate.

One is Portland State University, which in September 2011 will begin offering a . PSU already offers a graduate certificate in real estate development, but coursework is not comprehensive.

PSU’s two-year master’s program for real estate development will be the only one of its kind in either Oregon or Southwest Washington. About half of the courses will be taught by professors from PSU’s School of Business Administration and the School of Urban Studies and Planning. Also, two full-time professors will be hired specifically for the program.

The other half of the classes will be taught by local industry professionals. These include Bruce Wood, principal owner of Foundation Real Estate Development, and Cliff Hockley, principal broker with Bluestone & Hockley Real Estate Services.

“For the graduate certificate program, about 90 percent of the classes are taught by people in the industry, while the rest are taught by faculty,” said Gerry Mildner, director of PSU’s Center for Real Estate. “We still want that industry voice for the master’s program, but we also want to make sure there is full-time staff here working with the students.”

Mildner hopes to have both new faculty members hired by next spring. A hiring committee will interview 15 candidates at an academic conference in January; Mildner hopes three would then visit Portland.

“PSU’s timing for the program couldn’t be better,” said Brian Owendoff, managing director of CB Richard Ellis in Portland. “It will be a big source for finding talent as the industry runs into a shortage of experienced employees.”

An informational interview for prospective students is scheduled for Jan. 25 at 6 p.m. at PSU’s School of Business Administration, 631 S.W. Harrison St.

The post PSU expanding real estate development program appeared first on Daily Journal of Commerce.

Editor’s note: The Daily Journal of Commerce this month is examining changes for the American workforce as baby boomers start to retire. Today, the 91视频 looks at the energy industry. See also: Construction, Real estate, Architecture

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禄 Constriction: As boomers retire, threat of hollow workforce looms

Oregon politicians for the past few years have said that renewable energy has the job creation potential to pull the state out of its financial quagmire. But the state’s alternative energy industry, while critically important to develop, may not be the instant-job creator politicians have pitched.

Students graduating from renewable energy and energy efficiency programs are finding competition is high for the high-paying, highly technical jobs available in solar and wind technology. Meanwhile, industry advocates say Oregon and the country as a whole are dragging their feet on long-term energy policies that would allow the job market for renewables to expand.

If you add up all of the people working in conventional energy, from coal miners and pipeline builders to utility employees, there are less than one million jobs, according to Robert Whelan, director of economic consulting firm ECONorthwest. The fact is, Whelan said, the promise of clean energy jobs is touted as being far more than is really needed to sustain the industry.

“Green energy jobs have been nationally oversold,” Whelan said. “Power production and delivery is capital intensive, not work intensive. The wage rates are very high for these jobs, but the number of workers is low.”

That’s not to say job growth in renewable energy is stagnant. Oregon’s solar energy industry employs 1,000 people in manufacturing and hundreds of people in installations, according to Glen Montgomery, executive director of the Oregon Solar Energy Industry Association. The state has seen 30 percent growth in solar installations each year for the past decade, with 1,400 residential solar installations performed this year alone.

The growth is directly tied to Oregon renewable energy policies, Montgomery said, like the Renewable Portfolio Standard, business and residential energy tax-credit programs and the pilot feed-in tariff program for solar. But with the state facing a budget deficit for the next biennium, Montgomery said future predictions for job growth in solar are murky.

“We don’t know what we’re going to see next year from a legislative policy angle,” Montgomery said. “We will continue to see double digit growth in the employment arena as it corresponds to investments in manufacturing and demand for the industry. Whatever policies we continue or enact in the next year will stimulate or dis-incentivize job growth.”

Despite what’s happening with energy policy, colleges are busy creating new programs and bolstering old programs to create a workforce for the renewable and energy efficiency industries at all of Oregon’s major universities. Community and trade colleges, like Columbia Gorge Community College, Lane Community College and the Oregon Institute of Technology, have created programs specifically for renewable energy technicians and engineers.

And while schools are presumably keeping track of their individual graduate numbers, Colin Price of the Oregon Environmental Council said he was not aware of anyone gathering statewide data and comparing the numbers with actual job demand in Oregon.

Anecdotally, however, educators like Eric Westerholm with the Northwest Energy Education Institute say the Oregon job market for clean energy is saturated. The Institute for the last thirty years has offered training in building energy efficiency, and recently added training in renewable energy installations. Though there is small but steady growth in jobs for work related to photovoltaic and solar hot water installations, Westerholm said only the most competitive of his graduates are likely to obtain jobs locally. For the rest, he often recommends looking for employment in the energy industries in other states.

“You have to have the highest work ethic, the patience to build a network of contacts and the willingness to pick up extra education while you wait,” Westerholm said. “That’s how you get your foot in the door for renewable energy.”

While an average coal-fired or natural gas plant has only 50 to 70 employees, a wind or solar farm has even fewer, Whelan said, which is why there is so much competition. There is a lot of work to be had by the construction workers who prepare sites with roads and other infrastructure, and for the manufacturers that make the parts. But as far as permanent positions, a wind farm is fairly low maintenance and requires little staff. And while Oregon has attracted some manufacturing in solar, most of the wind manufacturing is done in the mid-West, Whelan said.

“Production of equipment for alternative energy doesn’t have to be next to where you use it,” Whelan said. “Bonneville Power Administration has made us the pinnacle of hydroelectric power, but none of that equipment is made in the Northwest.”

A lack of action on long-term policies that put a preference on renewable energy over fossil fuels, Westerholm said, is perhaps the greatest barrier to more jobs for his graduates.

“The longer we wait to lay the groundwork for the future, the more precarious our position becomes,” Westerholm said. “We have to step up and support those industries and technologies we can clearly see will be a part of our future.”

Future hiring at Oregon’s largest energy employers will depend on implementation of strong federal policies, according to Jan Johnson, spokesperson for Iberdrola. Iberdrola employs 350 people at its Portland headquarters, and will hire 70 wind technicians next year to fill openings at recently completed projects.

Iberdrola, and other employers like SolarWorld and Vestas are watching congress this month to see if action will be taken on a two-year extension of the , which provides cash grants in lieu of tax credits for renewable energy projects. The program, which expires at the end of 2010, has resulted in 52 new alternative energy projects in Oregon since it was enacted in late 2009, but is not included in President Obama and Congress’s recent tax agreement for 2011.

“Without strong public policy support for renewable energy, there will be a reduction in job growth,” Johnson said. “We are concerned about the expiration of the Treasury Grant Program as well as the status of other federal and state policies to help continue the growth of the industry.”

The post Green energy not a cure-all for job woes appeared first on Daily Journal of Commerce.

As Oregon looks to promote jobs in renewable energy, it can’t forget about the utility workers who keep power flowing. The Center for Energy Workforce Development cautions that the pipeline for those workers could run out soon.

By 2015, 46 percent of all existing skilled technician positions and 51 percent of engineering jobs are expected to become vacant due to retirement, according to a recent survey of the 31 companies that represent nearly half of all of the electric and natural gas utilities in the U.S.

Those numbers are more than a predication, said Randy Bryson, business representative for the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers Local 125, which provides skilled labor to Portland General Electric.

“Right now, around 40 percent of the lineman at PGE can retire any day,” Bryson said. “Utility companies also aren’t doing any hiring or making apprentice lineman and meter men. The apprenticeship cycle takes three to four years. So as we see people retire, we’re going to have a shortage in the industry.”

New workers joining the industry will have to be more highly trained than their predecessors, Bryson said, to deal with the growing demand on the grid as more variable wind power comes online. New transmission lines will need to be built to take Eastern Oregon wind power to metro areas in the west. That’s why Bryson thinks it’s time to start training the craftsmen, plumbers and electricians who will keep the infrastructure going.

“It seems like no one wants to take the time, or spend the money, to train and educate the next generation,” Bryson said. “Soon they’ll be asking where all the journeymen went.”

The post Shortage of utility workers coming in 2015 appeared first on Daily Journal of Commerce.

Editor’s note: Big changes are on the way for the American workforce. The oldest baby boomers will celebrate their 65th birthdays next month, and mass retirements will soon begin for the largest generation in U.S. history.

What does that mean for Oregon’s construction, energy, real estate and architecture industries? The Daily Journal of Commerce will take a deeper look this month, through a series of in-depth stories that examine each sector.

Today’s package kicks off the series, with a look at the construction industry. More packages will follow on Mondays in December. See also: Energy, Real estate, Architecture

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Today, the employment landscape for Oregon construction workers looks much like a big desert – mostly dry of opportunities. The few oases, like Intel’s planned expansion in Hillsboro, are drawing thirsty workers from miles around.

For employers, it’s the opposite: a massive ocean full of workers is staring at jobs as if they were made of life-sustaining liquid.

In a few years, though, that picture could flip dramatically when the economy starts to recover, baby boomers begin to retire and a relatively empty pipeline of skilled workers suddenly finds thirsty employers eagerly waiting to consume them.

The issue of retiring baby boomers was at the forefront of a lot of industry discussion before the housing market collapsed, but hard times have shifted discussion away from that topic. The problems are coming, though, and foresight will be required to deal with them, said Liz Elvin, senior director of workforce development at the Associated General Contractors of America.

“Before the economy tanked everybody was calling this 鈥榯he perfect storm,’ and I’m pretty sure that’s where we’re heading,” Elvin said. “We all are concerned that at some point the economy will pick up, there will be a great need for workers and at the same time the boomers will retire.”

The big drop-off might have started already if not for the economic collapse, because many older workers lost a lot of their 401(k) savings when the market went south and have continued working to try to make up for that, she said.

Older workers also have been sticking around on the job to help other family members that might have been laid off.

“At some point there’s going to be a big problem in that there won’t be enough skilled, trained people to fill the gap,” Elvin said.

Construction employment across the state peaked in March 2007 at about 105,500 workers. After the crash, the sector hit a low of 64,000 in February 2010, according to the Oregon Employment Department.

The need is expected to grow to 80,015 by 2018, with 1,558 job openings per year, according to department statistics. In Multnomah and Washington counties, the need is expected to grow to 29,387 by 2018, with 606 openings per year, according to the department.

The main problem in all of this is the kind of workers that are about to retire – highly trained tradesmen, supervisors and managers with 30 years of experience or more. Replacing them requires more future planning than just collecting a pool of new trainees, said John Killin, executive director of the Independent Electrical Contractors of Oregon.

“I’m concerned about the licensed trades, the specialty trades being especially hard to fill,” Killin said. “A lot of those take multiple years of apprenticeship and are highly regulated. You can’t just bring in 1,000 new electricians or plumbers or HVAC workers.”

That means you need to be planning out four years ahead, in many cases, he said.

Bart Eberwein, a spokesman for Hoffman Construction, said that’s something his company has certainly worried about.

“We’re seeing a lot of very skilled, very hardworking, very smart construction workers nearing retirement,” Eberwein said. “The challenge is how do we replace them with people equally talented, skilled and smart?”

The problem “is always on the short list of concerns in our industry,” he added.

Investing in workforce development when there is little work has been hard for companies, and apprenticeship programs have shrunk dramatically because of that.

“Apprenticeship programs include on-the-job training, but if there’s no work, then, well – right now a lot of programs just aren’t accepting new people,” Elvin said.

ACE Academy in Portland is one of a handful of programs around the state aimed at meeting the predicted industry growth. But the charter school, which lets juniors and seniors split time between it and seven high schools in east Multnomah County, is having a hard time keeping students involved as the economy continues to lag.

ACE is aimed at teaching kids a variety of skills across several disciplines. The program is designed to help students fill those highly skilled positions that baby boomers will soon leave empty, director Mike Taylor said.

“What we’re losing as the retirements begin is our veteran tradesman,” Taylor said. “We’re going to lose our supervisors, managers and our leadership. And to move into those roles, students will need writing and communication skills, along with math and science education.”

Unfortunately, the lack of opportunities and apprenticeships right now has soured a number of the 170 or so students at ACE on their hopes to enter the industry, he said.

“Kids are seeing two things – the first is that a lot of their families are in construction, and they’ve seen the industry struggling and their parents struggling to get work,” Taylor said. “The other is that current apprenticeship openings are so thin that even with the advantages of our programs, they’re struggling for opportunities to get in.”

Some students have already left ACE for more traditional architecture or construction management programs at other schools, he said. And it’s hard to convince them to stick around and wait for opportunities to reappear.

“We spend a lot of time talking to kids about being ready,” Taylor said. “We tell them about history and that this (economic downturn) has happened before.”

Of course, with students growing disillusioned with the field, the three-year-old school also faces its own challenges finding funding, although it has had some outside help from industry, Taylor said.

That makes it hard to grow the school to the 225 students that its operators would like to see. And even if it does grow that much as the sector picks up, the 110 or so graduates per year would make a relatively small dent in the 606 openings per year projected for Multnomah and Washington counties by 2018.

“Right now we’re just struggling to get kids to see beyond their noses,” Taylor said.

If the trend continues, and few people enter that educational pipeline and go through the four years typically required to move from apprentice to journeyman, then the wage cost for specialized workers will likely increase, backlogs will become more common and the educational pipeline could grow clogged – in much the same way that a lack of openings in educational programs has added to the nursing shortage, Killin said.

“You’ll see several things,” Killin said. “The demand will outpace the supply. It will be harder to get plumbers or electricians or other specialists to your job (site). Wages will go up. And we’ll have even more educational issues.”

Right now, as the market continues to lag, costs for the baby boomers’ expertise is low, which might be part of the reason that Intel decided to build its new microchip facility in Hillsboro. But don’t expect the low costs to last forever, Killin said.

“I imagine things will cruise along for a while, and we could see a bit of a construction boom over the next few years as things pick up, but probably by around 2015, we’ll see problems start to increase,” Killin said. “We’re working hard to get people into that pipeline now, and industry is aware of the problem.”

Some companies that are worried about the retirements have found ways to keep new workers in apprenticeship programs even if there are no jobs, and others are looking at ways to add more flexibility to work schedules and other benefits as ways to keep baby boomers around a bit longer, Elvin said.

“There are a lot of AGC chapters and AGC members that have continued to have the foresight to invest in this, even though it’s been a real conundrum,” Elvin said.

Considering the 2007 employment peak of 105,500 workers, it might not seem all that hard to get the pure numbers back to about 80,000 in seven years, but many of the workers that were in Oregon during the boom have moved out of state, switched to other careers or just aren’t available anymore, Killin said.

“Those workers left,” Killin said. “They’re gone. Nobody knows exactly where they went, whether they retrained or left Oregon, but they’re gone.”

Some union shops could be in better shape to fill demands as things pick up, though, because their training programs can be altered to rapidly add new workers, said Clif Davis, business manager at the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers Local 48.

The union’s five-year apprenticeship school normally gets 125 applicants each year, but with the bad economy, that number shrank to only 50 last year.

If the industry had the jobs to support it, the school could ramp up quickly to 350 a year, Davis said.

And while that wouldn’t create an instant pool of skilled workers, the union has built a program for retirees that could bring many of them back to fill gaps in the few years needed to train a new group, he said.

“We can offer a lot of incentives for retirees to return to work,” Davis said. “We can increase the pay. They can come back without losing their retirement benefits through some programs. That’s what we did during the last bubble.”

The situation is still a complicated mess, but trying to deal with it now could prevent some real problems in the future, Eberwein said.

“The catch-22 of construction right now is that over time you generally stay busy in this industry, and over time you make good money – but right now we’re at a bottom spot and it’s sometimes hard to remember how cyclical things can be,” Eberwein said.

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