Spire Experts Published in AACE’s Cost Engineering Journal

SPIRE EXPERTS PUBLISHED IN AACE’S COST ENGINEERING JOURNAL

about aace international

AACE is a non-profit association serving the total cost management community since 1956. AACE provides its members and stakeholders with the resources they need to enhance their performance and ensure continued growth and success. With over 9,000 members worldwide, AACE serves cost professionals in a variety of disciplines and across all industries and have members located in 100 countries. For more information about AACE and to find your local Chapter, please
visit https://web.aacei.org/

The Cost Engineering journal is a bimonthly professional peer-reviewed journal and is the official technical publication of AACE. Cost Engineering features a variety of best-in-field technical articles. While the journal is included as a member-only benefit, subscriptions are not available.

Spire’s experts have been published in the September/October 2018 edition of AACE International (AACE)’s Cost Engineering journal. The paper, Identifying and Predicting Labor Availability in the Construction Industry, was authored by Spire’s Nour Bouhou, PhD, Senior Consultant; Anthony Gonzales, Managing Principal; and Marcelo Azambuja, PhD, Consultant.

The paper describes the importance of accurately identifying and quantifying labor shortage conditions within the construction industry and how labor shortage conditions could severely impact the project costs, schedule, and safety. The authors addressed the industry misconceptions related to labor shortages, demonstrating the lack of accurate representation of the actual labor market condition. In addition to these studies only showing the employers’ perception of the labor shortages, they do not specify a quantifiable metric to define the market workforce.

“Multiple construction organizations have claimed recurring shortages of construction labor in the U.S. in the past three decades,” the authors state. “These organizations emphasized the criticality of understanding the implications of the shortages in the workforce on construction projects. However, firms have relied on published assessments based on cognitive approaches (i.e., employer skill, job vacancy surveys, etc.) instead of empirical information to determine the magnitude of these shortages.”

The paper goes on to provide an empirical analysis of the current labor market trends and forecast future trends. The authors also introduce a quantifiable metric to properly identify and predict the labor availability in the United States. To read the entire paper, please click the link below.