Not to mention the construction workers who aren’t working on new starts, commercial is just as bad.
Oh yeah, and does unemployment take into consideration those who were sub-contractors and won’t qualify for unemployment? If not, and we calculate in those subs, unemployment is waaayyy higher.
Tell me about it my husband is a Project Superintendent for a large commercial construction firm and he has been there for over 36 years now and we have never, ever seen things so bad.
He just has until 1 April 2010 and retirement thank goodness.
And the loggers who can’t sell wood to those construction companies, and the wood mill workers.
I live in Central Florida and have two longtime neighbors in the commercial construction trades.
They have each been employed with their respective firms (which employed 50-100 employees, each) for several decades. Their histories are the same! Each, over the past 4 years have steadily gone from Job Superintendent to Foreman to Journeyman to UNEMPLOYED within the last month.
My next-door neighbor went from sales manager of a heavy equipment company, to salesman, to unemployed in January.
I expect to see their homes added to the numerous other foreclosures locally before the end of the year.
"Change" has been a real boon for all of them!