In December 2022, Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell declared 3.5 million workers “missing” from the post-pandemic United States workforce.
In some ways, that number felt light. After all, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reports more than 98 million Americans quit their jobs between 2021-2022.
Of course, those millions of American workers didn’t go “missing.” The vast majority found new work to better fit their post-COVID lifestyles and/or income needs. Thus, “The Great Reshuffle” has been suggested to replace 2021’s catchphrase “The Great Resignation.”
By any name, the job sector’s new order stacked the deck against fields that require workers to show up and do the heavy lifting. And, as we celebrated the American worker on Labor Day 2023, what Chairman Powell called “a structural labor shortage” remained a significant challenge.
Good jobs with competitive pay will always attract able workers, however, which means a solution to this workforce challenge can be found in the reason we celebrate Labor Day: union labor.
This has always been true in the trades. An October 2022 Independent Project Analysis study, published on behalf of the Mechanical Industry Advancement Fund, found construction projects enlisting union tradesmen and women were 40% less likely to experience a shortage of skilled labor than those utilizing non-union contractors. The study also showed labor turnover was 33% less likely when union labor was employed.
Those figures will come as no surprise to the hundreds of QC builders who, since 1989, have constructed more than 600 Quad Cities projects with the confidence and assurance the IMPACT Construction Agreement offers.
The IMPACT Construction Agreement enlists 17 trade locals and more than 400 union contractors as signatories, all working collaboratively to ensure projects are built safely, efficiently, and, above all, with the kind of quality-in-quantity well-trained tradesmen provide.
Trade apprenticeship and training programs in the region are among the best in the nation, and they continue to grow the QC trade labor workforce.
At this year’s 36th annual IMPACT Labor Day Celebration Breakfast, nearly 100 QC civic leaders were to be introduced to the newest state-of-the-art Joint Apprenticeship Training Committee (JATC) facility — the Mid-America Regional Council of Carpenters and Millwrights Training Center in East Moline.
Gathering at this impressive new facility was a timely reminder for all that unionized labor remains the most reliable solution to any significant workforce challenge.
Craig DeVrieze is the executive director of the Illowa Construction Labor & Management Council. He can be reached at director@illowaimpact.org.
