(MIRS.news, Published 06/21/2024) Builders and contractors are looking for workers to keep up with the increased demand for building in Michigan. Nationally there is a 501,000 worker shortfall in 2024, according to the industry. 

Associated Builders and Contractors of Michigan President Shane Hernandez said not only are the workers needed, but there were project backlogs for construction and contractors. 

“Which is something in 2008, 2009, and 2010 was unheard of in Michigan. There wasn’t a work backlog. Everybody was out looking for work,” Hernandez said. 

The Arkansas Policy Foundation, a conservative think-tank based in Little Rock, released a study showing Michigan had a 98.8 percent growth in construction workers between April 2020, which was the height of the COVID-19 pandemic lockdown, to April 2024.  The numbers are from 103,300 nonfarm payroll construction sector jobs in 2020 to 205,400 in 2024. 

The 98.8 percent growth since April 2020 is the country's highest, followed by Vermont at 65.3%, Pennsylvania at 59.6%, Massachusetts at 54.9% and New York at 54.6 %. In April 2020, Michigan construction was all but shutdown due to the COVID pandemic and the Governor's stay-at-home orders. 

Hernandez said talent pipelines were a good way to help solve the worker shortage, which was expected to fall to 454,000 in 2025. 

He said there were two bills, SB 740 and SB 895, that would create a bottleneck to the pipeline and could see that number increase in Michigan.  

The Sen. Darrin Camilleri (D-Trenton) backed bill would mean that one master plumber could only be responsible for two apprentices, which currently doesn’t have a cap. The Sen. John Cherry (D-Flint) backed bill would mean one master electrician could only take on one apprentice, rather than three.  

“We’re talking about bills in the legislature that cut apprenticeship opportunities on the jobsite by as much as 66 percent, so the policy just doesn’t match what the demand is and it’s frustrating for us to watch,” Hernandez said. 

He said there is a major push for getting the youth into the trades, but the bills could end up limiting the number of students getting in and could create a bigger gap in the number of journeymen in the field. 

“I would venture to guess in four to six years, if we pass this bill, that you are going to see a shortage of journeyman electricians,” he said. 

The bills are supported by the National Electrical Contractors Association, which argues that the more journeymen electricians there are per contractor, the less the contractor is able to invest in his or her journeyman. 

"Obviously, if your contractor is following the (rules) registering their apprentices, and then they're following the one-to-one ratio … it's going to make it so that the contractor and the master of record are actually invested in that person trying to become a journeyman for the state of Michigan," said Chad Jansen, a journeyman with IBEW Local 665, during a legislative committee hearing earlier this week. "If you have 1, 2, 3-to-six or whatever the ratio is . . . then at that point, that contractor and that master of record are not invested in that individual becoming the best journeyman electrician for the state of Michigan."