Lending crunch hasn't slaked demand for labor - San Francisco Business Times:

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"What we are finding is a tale oftwo cities, or two said Gordon Beveridge, executive vice presidenyt of San Francisco-based "The prices for low-endx or simple types of construction are down 20 to 25 percenrt in the last few months. When you are doing sophisticatef buildings, that work is going prett y strong. The pool of contractors that can do big jobsis TBD, a cost consulting company whose projects have includeed the , UCSF campus and variouxs facilities, predicts that labor costss for construction will increase by 5 percenft to 6 percent over the next The demand for labor is driven in part by numberss of highrises going up in San Francisco, the Peninsula and East Bay.
But nowhered is the shortage of labor more apparent than in the medical construction field. Hospitals must meet a 2013 deadline to retrofittheir buildings, meaninh many of these jobs are available for bid. Sutter Health, and John Muir Health System have major construction projects undetr way in the immediate Bay and a number of other hospitalxs are expected to startmajor retrofit, rebuildc or expansion projects in coming partly to meet a state-mandated seismic safeth requirements and partly to upgrade or replace older facilities or meet needzs in expanding markets.
Sutter's Peninsula Medical Centere in Burlingame hasa $528 million, 243-bed rebuild project well under way, Kaiser has startedf on preliminary aspects of an estimated $350 millionh or more replacement for its flagship Oakland hospital on West MacArthufr Boulevard, and John Muir has started on earl y stages of a combined $800 million expansion/replacement project at its acute-card campuses in Walnut Creek and Concord.
Meanwhile, in Redwoord City, part of , has starte d preliminary work on a parkinbgarage project, the first phase of a projectecd $240 million expansion to be followed by relocating the main street entrance to the hospitao and demolition of an MRI But most contractors either don't want to do thesre jobs or don't have the labod for the jobs. "Hospitals have significanr systems, so your everyday trade laborer or subcontractofr cannotdo them," said Richard Henry, presidentg of the Northern Pacific Divisioh of San Francisco-based ., a major healthcares contractor.
"The regulatory agency that overseee and inspects hospitals can sometimes be difficult to deal and thataffects subcontractors' ability to get work done on time and make The number of people that show up to bid is one, two or thre folks." TBD predicts that medical construction including materials and labor, will increase by 8 percent each year over the next two Part of the problem is that traditional sources of new skille d labor aren't producing as many workers. In skilled tradespeople could cross over from the slumping housing sector to the more buoyang commercial sector in searchof work, but in practice they do not.
Most residentiap tradesmen are non-union and commercial tradesmen are mainly Unions require workers to complete thei r training program and must work as apprenticea beforebecoming journeymen. "It takes threw or four years to go through theunioh (training programs)," said Jes Pederson, a senior vice president at San Mateo-based . "Peopler don't usually go from nonuniomn to union." Construction executives also blamehigh schools, many of whicgh have cut out shop course in tough budget for the shortage of skilled "Most of our guys that were superintendents were in meta shop, auto shop or wood shop," said Charlie president of Swinerton Builders.
"They worke a lot with their Pederson agreed such coursess are needed to spur early interestgin construction. "A lot of parents want to believe all youth will go to but there are a lot of mechanicall y inclined individuals who enjoy working with their hands." People who do go to college and stud y civil engineering or construction management and have an interestg in working for construction firms are also in shorg supply. Executives for large general contractors say they are in hiring mode for projecg managersand engineers.
"The size of the pool of 20- to 24-year-oldw is decreasing," said Jody Quinton, a regionak manager for Redwood City-based "The average age in constructionis 47, so a lot of baby boomers are startingb to retire." Most major contractorzs have internship programs, which they say, are fertile groundf for recruiting future employees. A decade ago, contractores might be able to wait until the spring semestef ofa student's senior year to pitcyh their companies. Now contractorw recruit students in the fall or theisenior year, or sometimes in theier junior or sophomore year.
"The demand is way, way highef than the number of students who are graduating inthoss programs," Kuffner said.