The increase comes as builders report being more optimistic about the market. Builders showed renewed optimism in February, pulling more permits and beginning construction on more housing units, the Census Bureau and the Department of Housing and Urban Development said on Thursday. The number of permits rose 13.8% to an annual rate of 1.5 million,…

Drop in working hours leads to contraction in labor supply Shortfall keeps pressure up on wages, spurring inflation worry By Rich Miller April 5, 2023 at 3:00 AM PDTUpdated onApril 5, 2023 at 8:08 AM PDT Americans are spending less time working than they did before the pandemic. That’s good for many of them, but…

Hybrid work is changing the calculus of what it takes to live and work in separate places A new breed of commuter is going to great lengths—and doing a lot of number crunching—to pull off living and working in far-apart places. A super commuter used to mean someone who trekked at least 90 minutes to…

The conversation around the recession has intensified in recent months and different industries have started taking action to prepare for the impact. Since the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic (which feels like a lifetime ago now, no?), change has been the only constant for the construction industry and the economy at large.  Enduring a recession…

Job cuts are rising at some of the biggest U.S. companies, but others are still scrambling to hire workers, the result of wild swings in consumer priorities since the Covid pandemic began three years ago. Tech giants Meta, Amazon and Microsoft, along with companies ranging from Disney to Zoom, have announced job cuts over the past few weeks. In total, U.S.-based employers cut nearly 103,000 jobs in January, the most…

The construction industry is still in hiring mode and likely will be for the next few years, according to an industry group’s projection. Why it matters: It’s not supposed to be like this. Typically, when interest rates rise — or when the economy slows down — construction hiring contracts. The industry is incredibly sensitive to the business…

This may be the year when employer-employee power dynamics begin to normalize American workers’ wild ride is coming to an end. After three whiplash-inducing years of, first, professional vulnerability and, then, perceived invincibility, many people are returning to more typical levels of career security and leverage. Call it the Great Rebalancing of the employer-employee relationship. “We’re…

Employers are constantly finding new hoops for candidates to jump through. In late 2022, Jessica found herself in a predicament that will sound familiar to many job seekers: slogging through an extended interview process with seemingly no end in sight. She was up for a job as a fundraiser at a major social services organization…

When we discuss the current shortage of construction employees in our industry, we typically talk about the shortage of skilled trades, project management and engineering personnel. Obviously, people to fill these roles are in short supply, so companies and industry associations are right to focus on promoting careers in the trades and construction management through…

Going for a job interview is the stuff of nightmares for many people, while for others it is a chance to shine. Either way you are typically still interviewed by other human beings, either after walking into a scary office with one or more bosses sitting behind a desk, or via an equally nerve-wracking Zoom…