Diversity Study Propels Task Force Formation

Three local construction industry groups called last Thursday for the creation of an industry-wide task force to work to bring more women and minorities into the industry and avoid a labor shortage that is projected to hit the industry in five year.

The task force would be made up of purchasers of construction services, contractors, subcontractors, minority and women business leaders, labor representatives, and civic and community leaders.

Even though the industry is in a Depression, with unemployment approaching 19 percent, "We have to plan for future growth, and we have to replace retiring workers," said Len Toenjes, president, the Associated General Contractor of St. Louis (AGC).

"Community development will take a serious hit if we are unable to infuse the construction workforce with skilled craft workers in the future," added Dennis Lavallee, president, St. Louis Council of Construction Consumers. "That's how important a robust and healthy construction industry is to the overall economic health of the St. Louis region," he said.

The call for a task force was prompted by the completion of a two-year research project that looked into the composition of the local construction industry and construction workforce and assessed the results of 50 years of diversity efforts. The study, which was conducted by the Public Policy Research Center at the University of Missouri - St. Louis, was sponsored by the AGC, the St. Louis Minority Supplier Development Council, and the St. Louis Council of Construction Consumers.

The study highlighted that employment and training practices in the local construction industry are unsustainable: there is a lack of diversity, low completion rates in apprenticeship programs, and experienced skill workers are going to be leaving the industry faster than new workers are being trained to replace them.

The study found that the biggest diversity gap in construction is with the involvement of women in the workforce.

"White women make up 40 percent of the metropolitan workforce, but only 11 percent of the construction workforce," Toenjes said. "Nonwhite women make up 10 percent of the metropolitan workforce, but only one percent of the construction workforce," he said.

White men, in contrast, make up 42 percent of the metro workforce, but 81 percent of the construction workforce. Nonwhite men make up eight percent of the metro workforce and seven percent of the construction workforce.

The study projects that nearly a quarter of all construction workers active in 2007 will retire by the year 2017.

Several apprenticeship programs have shut down, due to the Depression, however. Even when they were running, most people, who entered the programs, never completed them, Toenjes said.

"From 2000 to 2009, only 17.4 percent of nonwhites, who entered an apprenticeship program, completed it. The completion rate for whites was much better, but still low, at 31 percent," he said.

Toenjes added that the study did not try to explain the discrepancy in the completion rates. "We were not aware of it until we saw the numbers," he said. "We will work with apprenticeship coordinators to address it."

The major purchasers of construction services "will drive efforts for a more inclusive workforce as part of our procurement of construction services," Lavallee said. "We will develop guidelines for construction diversity... We will specify the number of women and minorities to have on a job and that they have to be retained," he said.

Toenjes said the St. Louis industry has had diversity successes, but on a project level.

"The I-64 highway project is a national model for inclusion," he said, "but that project took three years and it takes four years to complete an apprenticeship, seven years to build a network, and more than that to build a business."

The call for a task force is for something more long-term, long enough to change the face of the industry.

"The time to act is now," Toenjes said. "The future of the local construction industry depends on all segments of the business community working together to find real solutions that benefit our industry and the economic well-being of the entire metropolitan area," he said.

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