Spire Experts Answer: How Do Natural Disasters Affect Labor Availability?

SPIRE EXPERTS ANSWER: HOW DO NATURAL DISASTERS AFFECT LABOR AVAILABILITY?

about the aba’s
construction lawyer

The Construction Lawyer serves as a central agency of information on programs related to the construction industry and provides training programs for attorneys and all else interested. The journal covers issues addressed by the Forum on Construction Law, including dispute avoidance and resolution, construction management, international construction, and more.

Spire’s experts have recently been featured in the American Bar Association (ABA)’s Summer 2019 publication of The Construction Lawyer. Managing Principal, Anthony Gonzales and Senior Consultant Nour Bouhou, PhD, PSP co-authored the edition’s leading piece in the journal with Brasfield & Gorrie’s Associate General Counsel, Jodi Taylor.

The article, titled “What Practitioners Need to Understand About Labor Availability and the Impacts of Natural Disasters,” focuses on the quantitative analysis of impacts caused by natural disasters. The authors provide an in-depth look at which factors have previously led to labor shortages in the A/E/C industry specifically, as well as the effect that natural disasters have had on various industries’ availability of labor. The authors identify and analyze five key causal factors of the growing percentage of labor shortages in the United States, noting the consequences of such shortages and how to proceed in the face of schedule delays and other project difficulties resulting from insufficient labor.

Mr. Gonzales, Dr. Bouhou, and Ms. Taylor used labor statistics, supply and demand curves and dynamic statistical models to explain and predict labor shortages in the industry. Using labor and job opening data, in addition to historical natural disasters, the authors demonstrated the effect of natural disasters on labor availability and supplied the legal avenues to pursue, thus providing readers with a well-informed toolbox to utilize when approaching labor shortage difficulties in their future projects and endeavors.