The highly infectious Omicron variant of COVID-19 has hit the U.S. hard. The Washington Post analysis of Census Household Pulse Survey data for late December 2021 to mid-January show about 8.8 million workers reported missing work because they were sick with COVID-19 or caring for someone else who was ill, according to www.constructiondive.com.
That number is triple the figure from early December 2021 and significantly exceeds the January 2021 peak of 6.6 million. Construction companies have been affected by the surge, and many contractors report their pool of workers is declining as the virus hits their communities.
Tim Spiegelglass, co-owner of Spiegelglass Construction Company, St. Louis, said one of his company’s electrical subcontracting firms at one point had 75% of its office test positive. The rest of the workers in the office had to quarantine, so there were no electrical workers on the job site for a week.
David Brown, a project executive at New York City-based CNY Group, said Omicron was affecting his company’s operations the most in the quick-build retail projects, which typically can take 14 to 16 weeks and require a large volume of workers at once. Across current projects, Brown generally is seeing a 10% to 15% loss of workers on any given day.
Contractors are using various tactics to keep job sites running, such as quickly bringing in subs or recruiting managers and executives to help. But smaller contractors do not have extra people who can be pulled in to help and often just proceed unless something prevents them from doing so.
Spiegelglass said his company has adapted, with supervisors bouncing to different job sites and project managers staying in the field longer than they typically would.
Other ways contractors are trying to combat the issue are by hosting short training sessions to quickly bring new recruits onto job sites or using technology, such as drones.
Brown said it currently is important to plan work shortages into schedules and deliverables.
“I feel like people are really starting to understand that a little bit better now and are more receptive to adding a little bit of time at the front end of a project to address it and to manage it,” Brown said.
