Phoenix has lost 96,000 construction jobs since 2006

[Ponderosa]

Originally Posted by Java Jolt

Gosh, I thought the illegal worker problem was a thing of the past since 1070 went into law.

I guess that didn't have as much of an impact as first thought.

Prior to the recession, estimates were that 1/3 of construction jobs were filled by illegal workers. Many just left the state in search of work elsewhere. So the impact was cushioned somewhat unless you were in a business that catered to that population. Now that e-verify requirement has been upheld by the Supreme Court, it will be interesting to see if the fraction of illegal labor returns to what it was as construction picks up. If not, it would be a real boost for legal residents in the construction trades. There may even be a shortage of qualified workers initially leading to an influx of legal residents from other parts of the US.

[Finger Laker]

Things are still pretty depressed, although it does appear that things are stabilized and swinging upwards a touch.

While there is some illegal labor that was moved out, the vast majority of that was simply labor

The bulk of the unemployed here are people who just ran out of projects to work on .... you can see the impact not only in the unemployment numbers, but also in other issues like increased workers compensation claim frequency ..... there is definitely a shared cost here

Some encouraging signs are that commercial vacancies are starting to fill up - although still far from where anyone would want them to be

Master planned communities are coming back from dormant and selling homes across the valley - they have hit the point in the cycle where it's more effective for them to develop the lots and get them sold rather than just hold them.

One thing to note with that though is that the landscape has changed ...... the pool of subcontractors and those performing the work is vastly different and they are working at margins a lot thinner than they have in the past .... what that means for quality is yet to be seen, but it's worth watching

The hail storm event showed how much the landscape has changed .... there was actually a shortage of residential contractors to handle all the work that needed to be done .... a year later there are still uncompleted repairs

Still very competative out there, a lot of firms running very skinny .... but at least they're working and starting to get in a position to hire a little bit more which is a good thing

Probably got a couple more years before anyone starts feeling remotely comfortable, but early signs are encouraging