Happy Spring.

In our calls with builders these days, we're hearing optimism, particularly on Mondays, when a lot of executive teams take stock of how sales did over the weekend.

New communities are opening, construction has begun, and if the weather cooperates, builders will have their work cut out for them to deliver homes when they're promised, thanks to a labor squeeze.

The National Association of Home Builders notes that residential construction employment has been growing at a clip of about 11,300 jobs per month for the past year, with an even faster pace in the past 6 months. Now, 2.7 million residential construction workers, which the NAHB breaks down as 767,000 builders and 1.94 million residential specialty trade contractors, compare to pre-Great Recession peaks of about 3.4 million a decade ago.

The NAHB has also explored whether younger, less experienced people are more prevalent on the job sites, and found among its sample of almost 300 builders that, yes, this is the case to a minor or major degree among 63% of them.

Of course, younger workers succeeding older ones who aged out of residential construction occupations, or found other means of making a living after they lost their jobs in home building during the Great Recession, is a good thing. But it brings with it challenges that can cost extra time and oversight during cycle times that need to be as efficient as possible.

Here's an instance where job site technologies--smart glasses or hardhats, and other sensor, transmitter, and microprocessor-based gear--can help, both on quality assurance, and real-time training.

There's a rub though.

At least one in four construction workers--both the veterans and the younger workers--are immigrants. According to estimates from the Pew Research Center, on the order of 13%-to-15% of construction and extraction workers are unauthorized immigrants.

Further, if you want plasterers and stucco masons on your site, three out of five of them are likely to be immigrants, some 36% of them unauthorized. Among drywall and ceiling tile installers and tapers, half are immigrants, and 31% of those immigrants are estimated to be unauthorized.

Now that momentum is picking up, builders are pouring resources into adding new home communities at lower, more-attainable price points, and they need to pass the costs of those big investments through greater volume, and highly efficient construction cycles.

Crackdowns and deportations of unauthorized immigrants could jeopardize not just some but many new-home deliveries.

The NAHB has been advocating for several years for "comprehensive" immigration reform that would both ensure security and secure the supply of workers needed for the job sites. Specifically, the trade group has focused on a guest worker program" as a strategy to sustain labor capacity at its current level. Here's the part of the NAHB policy statement that addresses immigrant guest workers.

  • Creates an efficient, temporary guest worker program for the construction industry that allows employers to recruit legal immigrant workers when there is a shortage of domestic workers.
  • Supports a plan to address the status of the current undocumented immigrant population and create a system whereby they can achieve legal status.

Let's hope progress on a guest worker program happens in the "first 100 days," because residential construction can use all the [labor] help it can get right now.