With house building in the US surging, job growth should be tracking up proportionally. An ENR article describes why that’s not the case.

Simply stated, the construction recession lasted too long and many of the laid off workers found other jobs. Some paid better, but even those that didn’t have the advantage of not having the cyclic swing of construction. Many of the illegal immigrants that do construction work returned to their native lands. Many of the Mexicans returned to home to a strong economy with decent job prospects, they may not not need to come back to USA.

Of course, this trend doesn’t occur equally throughout America, but the areas that have the most housing growth are seeing construction wages increase for qualified folks. So you may need to travel, but the work (and the pay) is there.

The National Association of Home Builders says nearly half its members who responded to a survey in March said a scarcity of labor has led to delays in completing work. Fifteen percent have had to turn down some projects.

“I can’t find qualified people to fill the positions that I have open,” says Vishaal Gupta, president of Park Square Homes in Orlando, Fla. If not for the labor shortage, “I would be able to build more homes this year and meet more demand than I can handle today.”

As an industry, we need to see wages go up and recruit more young people into the trades. As an individual, you may see an opportunity here.

ENR annouced today that international energy pipeline giant Tenaris SA plans to build a $1.3B US manufacturing facility south of Houston. The 1 million-square-foot facility will complete in 2016.

Texas Gov. Rick Perry said Friday that Tenaris, the world’s No. 1 producer of steel tubing for the oil and natural gas industry, is receiving $6 million from the Texas Enterprise Fund to close the deal.

Perry said he persuaded the Luxembourg-based company to choose Texas while expanding its U.S. workforce during his economic development trip to Italy last year.

The plant will feature a seamless pipe mill, heat treatment and premium threading facilities. It is expected to eventually produce 600,000 tons of pipe annually.

The highly automated plant will produce many construction jobs but only 600 permanent jobs. As I’ve written before, that trend of bringing manufacturing back to the USA (for products to be used in the USA) will continue, but the automated plants won’t spew jobs like in the past.

In some other good news, ENR reported that New York state and local agencies will receive $287 million in emergency federal highway aid to reimburse them for repairing roads and bridges damaged by Hurricane Sandy and other storms. That’s a good chunk of cash for NY infrastructure projects.

So the construction recovery news continues on a positive trend. Many of my customers seem bullish on business prospects and want to improve their offerings with new facilities. If you have business decisions to make, consider this trend and be aggressive.