00:03I may be a little biased here, but if you're an individual that wants to build great things,
00:07there's no better time to be in the construction industry.
00:09Everybody wants a construction worker who needs a construction worker right now.
00:13The income that they're offering has almost doubled.
00:16Just the demand itself for skilled tradesmen and electricians in particular, it's definitely risen.
00:22The explosion of AI investment has led to a boom in the need for data centers,
00:27and that means the country needs more construction workers, and it needs them now.
00:31The scale of the projects and the demand coming with projects at that mega scale continues to increase.
00:38Mark Whitson began his career as a carpenter 25 years ago.
00:41Today, he is president at DPR Construction, one of the largest data center builders in the United States.
00:48If you read in certain places, they'll tell you 100 gigawatts is what the collective demand between now and 2030
00:57will be.
00:58I think that's woefully understated from what we're seeing from our partners and owners is that that could be what
01:05they're looking for in 2026 and 2027.
01:08I think it'll be a multiple of that.
01:10The construction duration also varies from 11 to 12 to 24, 36 months, depending on the size.
01:18But as you can imagine, with the demand that's out there right now for these AI factories, everybody wants them
01:23faster, and they want them less costly.
01:26And so it's a challenge and an opportunity for the industry right now.
01:29The opportunity for a company like DPR is growing to meet that ever-increasing demand.
01:34The challenge is making sure you have the people you need to keep up.
01:38Neela Richardson is a Bloomberg contributor and analyzes employment data at ADP.
01:43Neela, is there a surge in construction-related employment?
01:47Well, there has been.
01:49Over the last five years, we've seen at ADP those numbers go up by 20%.
01:53That's two and a half times more than the all employees, all industries.
01:59But it's slowed recently, and that is due to demographics.
02:04It's not just employer demand driving construction hiring.
02:08It's the natural pacing of father time on that industry.
02:13A lot of construction workers are retiring.
02:16Labor shortages are nothing new to the construction industry.
02:19But Whitson says the expertise needed to build data centers means that this time might be different.
02:25One of the things that makes the data centers more unique is really around the pace and scale, especially today,
02:31where some of the components within the data center may not be as unique.
02:35But when you amplify that by the scale of these projects and the reduced pace of these projects,
02:41it becomes different and becomes the need for additional skill set that's more specialized
02:47than some of the other types of commercial construction.
02:51Data center construction requires more specialized, skilled workers,
02:56the kind that typically come with experience over years,
03:00which means there's a problem when retirement time comes around.
03:04Well, let's take HVAC, because that's where we're seeing a huge demographic hit.
03:08And it's not because young people are coming in to the industry and becoming HVAC engineers.
03:14I wish that was the case.
03:15Older workers are leaving, and so is their expertise and their sophistication.
03:19So when you go back to a data center where one or two degrees makes a big difference
03:25in how much you're emitting into the atmosphere, into the environment,
03:29that level of sophistication and expertise is retiring at this moment.
03:34As in any other market, when the supply for skilled workers falls behind demand,
03:39the result shows up in prices.
03:42It does.
03:42And wage growth has been higher.
03:44Not only wage growth, but bonuses.
03:46We clocked bonuses for construction workers at ADP,
03:50and they're twice the amount of regular employees outside of the industry.
03:55Now, bonuses were a big deal during the Great Resignation, trying to get people in.
03:59But they've kind of gone by the wayside for most industries, but not construction.
04:04They're still a valuable tool in getting people to,
04:08in drawing workers in and drawing them away from their employer.
04:14All this creates an attractive potential opportunity for young people eager to meet the moment.
04:19Did you get it?
04:20Mm-hmm.
04:20Sweet.
04:21Inside an electrician class at Germana Community College in Virginia,
04:25The bank is right here.
04:26Students from all walks of life are studying to be job ready.
04:30So I work up north, and there's a number of job vacancies that they're seeking,
04:36not just installers, not just HVAC, but electricians in particular,
04:41because it impacts safety, impacts energy, you name it.
04:46So there's just a ton of jobs around that field.
04:48So I think just long term, I'm trying to hedge my bets.
04:51I see job postings all the time.
04:53I'm a member of a union, and we get all kinds of postings.
04:57Just in my area in Manassas, there's, I think, three different data centers that have sprung up
05:02just in the past couple years that I've been there.
05:04So they're constantly hiring.
05:05And they make sure everybody else knows.
05:07Tina Lance is the dean of workforce development at Germana.
05:10Our role in the community is several, several reasons.
05:14One of the things that we do is work with our employers
05:17to make sure that we are meeting their workforce pipeline needs.
05:21It's been really easy for students to be hired with skilled trades in the region, absolutely.
05:25The demand far exceeds the number of laborers that we have available in our market.
05:31There are currently seven data centers actively being built near Germana,
05:35with many more in the works.
05:37The credentials that are most in demand for data centers are electrical, HVAC, plumbing,
05:44as well as data center operators.
05:46So those are the ones that right now we're spending quite a bit of time making sure
05:51we're doing our very best to increase the pipeline.
05:54Enrollment has absolutely been increasing over the last few years for skilled trades.
05:59You have many students that are now looking at skilled trades or credentials as a way
06:06to get a skill, get a job right out of high school.
06:09There are different things that draw people to further their education in a particular area.
06:15Many times it's passion, what they're interested in.
06:19Sometimes what you'll see is people do it because of the money.
06:23Welding right now is in high demand, and so many of those students will graduate
06:30with their certification, immediately get hired, and we've had several of our students
06:36that within the first year or two they're in a six-figure annual salary.
06:40So that's pretty significant when you think about somebody 20, 21 years old with really
06:48no debt from a student educational standpoint with a six-figure salary.
06:54Beyond bringing more workers to the construction site by offering higher pay and more training,
06:59companies are also bringing work to the workers.
07:02Is this all good now?
07:03Yeah.
07:04Michael Davis is a superintendent at DPR's prefabrication assembly facility.
07:09That looks pretty good.
07:09Otherwise known as the prefab lab in Raleigh, North Carolina.
07:14Labor shortages are something we're seeing in the industry.
07:17One way we're working to fix that issue is we're prefabricating a lot of products off-site.
07:25And then on-site, we're using anyone who's a new hire to skilled labor to be able to assemble
07:33the products we're shipping out and we're able to keep up and if not beat schedules.
07:37So we're doing very complex walls, soffits, radiuses, or complex geometry and turning those
07:44into various kits or even panels and shipping them to jobs where we can use apprentices straight
07:50out of our apprenticeship or people off the street just, you know, starting construction
07:53for the first time all the way to skilled labor to be able to assemble them within a day
07:58or two of training and we're doing finished product with that.
08:02Technology is the rage across all of American business right now, including with data centers.
08:06To what extent can you rely upon technology to replace some of the workers that you lack?
08:11Well, it's a great question, David.
08:13And I don't know that I'd frame it in the way of replacing workers that we have.
08:16It's actually allowing the workforce to do more and to maybe do things that are more productive,
08:21more effective, more impactful.
08:23And so the technology is allowing us to help mitigate a reduction or a lack of availability
08:29in workforce.
08:30I think you started as a carpenter originally.
08:32I did.
08:33How has the image and role of construction worker changed over your career?
08:38I would say that it's starting to transform.
08:41I think that the reputation in the construction industry has not always been the greatest.
08:47And I think that it's an unfair stigma that is put on the industry.
08:52And I think that we've got to continue to help change the narrative really to reality,
08:57which is much better than it was 25 years ago when I started.
09:01But we've also got to do more to improve the construction industry so that it's more attractive
09:06to more people.
09:07I remember my industrial arts class was my favorite class for a very long time.
09:14And if someone had said to me, hey, Neela, you don't have to be an economist.
09:18You can be a carpenter.
09:20We might be having a very different conversation right now.
09:23But no one said that to me.
09:24I didn't understand that to be a field, especially for women.
09:29But I think that is changing.
09:31The skills demands for the economy makes it so.
09:34But it's really about getting young people excited about these blue-collar jobs as well
09:39as other places in the economy.
09:41It's a really exciting field to produce again and to make things, make things that feed the
09:48next technological boom in the United States.
09:50AI promises us a wealth of new tricks.
09:54But to get there, we need the old dog of traditional construction and the skilled labor it requires.
10:00Putting the question to people like the younger Neelas and Marks of this world, whether to
10:05become an economist or a carpenter.
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