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The construction labor force is one of the most under-pressure parts of the US jobs market. The WSJ notes that new construction hires have dropped 107,000 quarter on quarter, yet new listings have risen by 23,000 in the same time. For job security and a sense that there’ll always be something new to be done, there are few sectors better than construction. What’s more, the nature of the American construction job is a lot different from how it might have looked even a couple of decades ago.
Protected rights
The scale and complexity of modern builds are far past the levels seen before. Work has become safer, due to better safety controls, tools, and protocols, but also with new added elements of danger. This has led to a 5% rise in worker fatalities, according to In These Times. Protections, however, are strengthened, both in and outside of organised union benefits. The modern construction accident attorney has a range of new legislation and OSHA protections, built up over the past decade, to ensure that construction workers are as best protected as they can be in order to prevent accidents, but also to gain proper compensation if and when accidents do occur.
A technical side
Construction has always been a quiet hotbed of innovation. Even simple materials like concrete are the result of innovation, and are constantly being updated. As the World Economic Forum asserts, smart home building is the future in construction – there is a clear need for sustainable and connected buildings that will be the homes for future generations without sacrificing climate and environmental goals. The construction worker of the future, then, is someone who will be comfortable using new tools and techniques and can understand the role of the devices they use in home building and wider construction projects. This technologically led edge is the clear future in construction.
Modern needs
Construction companies in both commercial and residential sectors are struggling to find the workers they need. According to Bloomberg, this is down to a mix of factors; one of which is a lack of up-to-date skills in the modern construction workforce. Having the best skills, and being comfortable with new levels of technology and the demands of modern homes, is crucial in producing good quality work for construction firms and good quality buildings for the future. Construction workers in the modern day need to be multi-skilled, comfortable with understanding how the work they contribute to is brought up and how it operates, and flexible, too, in order to understand changes in the industry and how the modern construction industry demands better quality and more eco-friendly housing.
The modern construction worker isn’t one that is there to simply put the blocks into place. It’s a very modern and forward-thinking workplace at the forefront of the new home building and infrastructure revolution; a key part of the modern American industry. It’s an exciting industry to get into that will cover many of the bases of modern work skills.
