Thread: Construction Job Growth Yet Still High Unemployment in Fl

Alot of unemployed construction workers are complaining.

http://www.miamiherald.com/2010/04/16/1 ... _Container


South Florida's construction industry sees some job growth
By TOLUSE OLORUNNIPA
tolorunnipa@MiamiHerald.com
As the national unemployment rate dips from double digits, joblessness in Florida is getting worse, reaching record highs each of the past three months.

Florida's unemployment rate inched up to 12.3 percent in March, a tenth of a percentage point higher than a month earlier, the state labor department announced Friday. That's the highest jobless rate since the state began keeping records in 1970.

More than 1.1 million Floridians are out of work -- 250,000 of them in South Florida.

``This month's report is completely consistent with a labor market that is at or really close to a bottom,'' said University of Central Florida economist Sean Snaith. ``We're seeing some job growth in a few sectors and only a slight increase in the unemployment rate.''

Unemployment in Miami-Dade County topped 12 percent for the first time in March, rising two tenths of a percent to 12.1 percent, according to seasonally adjusted federal statistics. Seasonally unadjusted unemployment was slightly down in all other South Florida counties -- 10.6 percent in Broward, 7.7 in Monroe and 12.1 in Palm Beach.

The region's construction industry has been one of the big casualties of the recession -- and one out of every three construction jobs that existed in South Florida three years ago has since disappeared.

But recently, the battered industry has started to show signs of recovery -- another indication that the unemployment rate may not go much higher.

The industry added jobs for the second month in a row in March, after 44 consecutive months of losses. Statewide construction employment dropped from 686,700 in June 2006 to 360,300 in March.

While the recent gain of 2,700 construction jobs since January pales in comparison to the huge losses that the industry has suffered, builders welcomed the uptick.

``We stabilized at the beginning of the year. We just hired back three people,'' said Tom Murphy, chairman and chief executive of Coastal Construction Group, a Miami company that slashed 70 percent of its workforce last year. ``We don't expect to have anymore layoffs this year.''

Miami-Dade County added 200 construction jobs in both January and February, and a number of contractors have secured large building projects recently, signaling that the industry might be coming back to life.

A LONG JOURNEY

The journey back to stability for the construction industry is likely to be a long and slow one, given the deep slide builders have faced since the booming condominium market hit a wall three years ago.

Credit is still tight, competition for projects remains fierce and the state's housing market continues to struggle.


``The industry has been in a tremendous state of uncertainty,'' said Noelia Moreno, president of the Latin Builders Association and vice president of Moralmar Kitchen Cabinets in Hialeah. Her company, which once manufactured cabinets and furniture, had to cut employment from 150 to 10. It shut down its manufacturing operation last year and now operates as a distributor.

Murphy's Coastal Construction started eliminating jobs in 2008 after seven multimillion-dollar building contracts were canceled due to the recession. With no new building contracts in the first 10 months of 2009, his company had no choice but to cut back its workforce from 500 to 150, Murphy said.

He called it the worst business climate in his 40 years in the industry.

The construction industry is likely to play a major role in determining the speed and shape of South Florida's economic recovery. Of 475,000 jobs lost in Florida last year, 118,700 -- or one in four -- were in construction.

Snaith said that while Florida may have neared the end of its streak of rising unemployment, the state faces a long slog to recovery.

``Once you hit the bottom, you begin the long and arduous task of climbing out of the deep hole we find ourselves in,'' he said. ``Construction probably has the deepest hole and the longest climb out.''

ENCOURAGING SIGNS

A few local companies are beginning to show signs of recovery. Coastal Construction currently has more than $750 million in building projects in South Florida, including the 35-story 1450 Brickell office tower and the $480 million St. Regis Bal Harbour Resort in Bal Harbour.

After 10 months of inactivity in 2009, Coastal has signed eight projects in the past six months.

But in order for the industry to really recover, state and local governments must invest in infrastructure projects and the banking sector has to ease access to credit, said Len Mills, executive vice president of the Associated General Contractors' South Florida chapter.


``If the government won't spend money to build new roads and bridges, and if the private sector can't get financing, all those people are going to remain unemployed,'' Mills said.

"The ILLEGAL EMPLOYERS like the Mafia always covered their trail with fake enterprises. All of the ILLEGAL EMPLOYERS realize that many subcontractors are organized exclusively to hire ILLEGALS while they persist in seeking out these subcontractors for cheap ILLEGAL labor and they use their supposed ignorance of the subcontractor's hiring practices to end run the law. Construction, Oil Refineries, Retailers, and many others use the services of these subcontractors to secure their cheap labor at the expense of United States Citizens. As our President commented, as long as the ILLEGAL EMPLOYERS are able to claim ignorance of the law without penalty they will maintain their effort to secure cheap labor resulting in the ILLEGALS continuing to scurry across our unsecured national borders.

HEAVY FINES and FELONY JAIL time for the ILLEGAL EMPLOYERS! Felony Conviction and Deportation for the ILLEGALS!"

Illegal aliens are still heavily employed in the construction jobs that are out there; many have started their own companies with all illegal alien employees.
Contractors should be held accountable for any subs they hire with illegal alien crews.

Originally Posted by hattiecat

Illegal aliens are still heavily employed in the construction jobs that are out there; many have started their own companies with all illegal alien employees.
Contractors should be held accountable for any subs they hire with illegal alien crews.

With all the city construction going on any government funded project should have mandatory e verify and that should extend into private jobs as well. There is a city that is getting involved with a construction project on the beach. I am going to talk to the city manager to see if they could put a claus in the contract regarding e-verifying for all sub contractors.