Building up the Construction Workforce
Wilmington-based Liberty Land Development provides insights into attracting the next generation of construction workforce.
According to Wilmington Biz, “for the last six years, the Wilmington-Cape Fear Home Builders Association (WCFHBA) has waged war on the ongoing workforce crisis in our region,” said Cameron Moore, executive officer of the not-for-profit trade association.
With the average age of North Carolina construction workers cemented at 46, said Moore, “this presents a significant challenge, as in the next 12 to 16 years, many of these workers will be retiring or slowly getting out of the industry.”
According to the National Association of Home Builders’ 2024 Eye on Housing report, the share of Baby Boomers in the construction workforce is 16.2%, “implying that a substantial portion of the workforce would retire in the near future.”
But the good news “is that we are starting to see younger people joining the construction industry,” Moore said.
And many of them are Gen Zers, or those under 25 born between the mid-1990s and early 2010s. According to the Eye on Housing report, “the share of younger construction workers ages 25 and under increased to 10.8% in 2022 from 9% in 2015.”
For Teresa Woods-Cox, owner of Wilmington-based Liberty Land Development and former owner of TA Woods construction company, recruiting, training and retaining the next cohort of carpenters, plumbers, pipefitters and HVAC installers comes down, in part, to changing the veneer.
“The first thing that I would say to anybody is construction is for anybody and everybody,” said Woods-Cox, who also serves as co-chair of the Cape Fear Construction Sector Partnership. “It’s capturing those groups that we know are going to do really well (in the industry) and changing the perception and mindset of what construction can be for them.”