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The strange and awful path of productivity in the US construction sector

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Re: The strange and awful path of productivity in the US construction sector

#211

Post by freitzkriesler »

pirate787 wrote: post #39

In this time-period there has been a large-scale introduction of undocumented workers into the construction labor force. They are a quarter of some construction labor categories. Perhaps using undocumented subcontractors may play a role in lower productivity growth (cheap, unstable, and relatively unskilled labor) or maybe just distorting the statistics. https://www.americanprogress.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/02/...

You're going to get a lot replies nit picking this, but as a former construction PM gone software PM, I can tell you this: good skilled tradesmen are hard to find and their illegal immigrant fill ins (even the legal ones) are dangerous, do shoddy work, and will almost always delay a construction project. Let me put it into HN terms: It's like hiring a bunch of off shore junior devs to save money and then you wonder why the finished product is so shoddy or worse keeps failing QC. Then you have to bring in the $100/hr senior dev to clean up the mess. Not a lot of differences between building software and well buildings.

Re: The strange and awful path of productivity in the US construction sector

#212

Post by rtkwe »

marcusverus wrote: post #186
SpeedilyDamage wrote: post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What’s wild is that the entire concept, as we know it, of “undocumented workers” only existed for the past ~22 years.

You think that the concept of unauthorized workers coming across the border has only existed since the year 2000? I think you're confusing the term "undocumented" or "undocumented worker" with the underlying concept that's referenced by the terms. The concept has long been in in the public spotlight using different terms ("illegal" or "illegal alien"). Here's some statements from Gerald Ford on the same concept, usin…

Ironically modern tighter boarder controls contribute to more people moving here permanently/semi-permanently. When border crossings were easier and cheaper migrant workers could come work for a harvest or several and return to Mexico or beyond during the off season only living in the US for a short period while working. Now the crossing is more expensive and dangerous so the incentive is to move here full time.

Re: The strange and awful path of productivity in the US construction sector

#213

Post by valray »

pirate787 wrote: post #39

In this time-period there has been a large-scale introduction of undocumented workers into the construction labor force. They are a quarter of some construction labor categories. Perhaps using undocumented subcontractors may play a role in lower productivity growth (cheap, unstable, and relatively unskilled labor) or maybe just distorting the statistics. https://www.americanprogress.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/02/...

The undocumented workers that I personally know are skilled, motivated, and diligent workers. Perhaps in part because they desperately need to hold on to this source of income. If anything, I think they would boost productivity metrics.

Re: The strange and awful path of productivity in the US construction sector

#214

Post by tristor »

robotresearcher wrote: post #187
tristor wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think this is one of the major impacts. My experience (family in construction) is that day labor / undocumented workers often don't have construction skills, and so have to be trained on the job, and each crew has mostly new/unskilled folks with a few skilled folks to guide them and keep them on track. Over time, these folks become skilled, and generally end up running crews. It's very commonplace to find the more…

How is the labor cost accounting done in businesses that rely on such labor? How does the risk of government sanctions to the business play out? I'm interested where the blind-eyes are built in.

> I'm interested where the blind-eyes are built in.

The blind eyes are built in at every single layer. I mean, it only requires a master's license to pull a permit, but master's in trades almost are never hands on, it's all journeymen, apprentices, or day labor. You as a general contractor sub out a master and his crew, and as long as the permitting happens in a timely manner and the inspection passes, you really don't care about anything else. The city doesn't care, because the master is on-site for inspection, so as long as inspection passes, they're not going down the line and asking everyone for ID or anything.

There's SO MANY blind eyes, at every layer. It's pretty much a "don't ask, don't tell" policy because if we actually started enforcing the law, nothing would get done. There are significant industries in the US that are almost entirely reliant on day labor / undocumented immigrants, construction is one of them.

Re: The strange and awful path of productivity in the US construction sector

#215

Post by pixl97 »

tonymet wrote: post #142

Does any government office work on efficiency? I can think of local , state, federal offices working to slow things down, but none working on speeding things up.

Standards across the industry in theory should increase efficiency. Problem is homes are highly customized quite often.

Add to that home building is very boom/bust. The county I live in currently has 1900 homes in progress. A year from now if the market goes down that number could be 100. Trying to scale things that have regulated and licensed inspections is massively difficult. And the answer is not let the builder do whatever because whatever almost always equals screwing the buyer.

Re: The strange and awful path of productivity in the US construction sector

#216

Post by aorloff »

huevosabio wrote: post #197
tristor wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think this is one of the major impacts. My experience (family in construction) is that day labor / undocumented workers often don't have construction skills, and so have to be trained on the job, and each crew has mostly new/unskilled folks with a few skilled folks to guide them and keep them on track. Over time, these folks become skilled, and generally end up running crews. It's very commonplace to find the more…

My experience (in the Bay Area) has been that regardless of country of origin, construction work is insanely inefficient. Lots of administrative bs, lots of made up rules, lack of communication between trades, tons of "not my job" attitude.

Wait until you hear how large software organizations run

Re: The strange and awful path of productivity in the US construction sector

#217

Post by 56friends »

Uehreka wrote: post #176
javajosh wrote: post #137

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>undocumented workers [are responsible for the productivity drop] I am confused by this assertion. If they are undocumented, wouldn't they be excluded in the stats? And if they aren't included in the stats, shouldn't we expect an artificial increase in worker productivity? If there is a 4:1 undocumented to documented ratio, then that 1 documented person will get "credit" for the work of 5 people! Even if 4 of those p…

Not necessarily. Undocumented doesn’t mean “excluded from the stats”, it means “doesn’t have a valid work visa or social security number”. I’m not sure if something similar happens in construction, but I’ve heard that in the landscaping business a supervisor will just pull up to a Home Depot with a pickup truck, and there’ll be a bunch of people waiting around, and they’ll go “Who wants $X for Y hours?” And then 4 or…

Just speculating, but the number of people who are here legally but do not have a work permit is probably not significant in the construction business. Getting a long term visa requires so much effort and money, that it’s likely not feasible for this group of workers.

Re: The strange and awful path of productivity in the US construction sector

#218

Post by parineum »

elmomle wrote: post #193
hn_go_brrrrr wrote: post #165

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Undocumented" is the current preferred euphemism for "illegal immigrant".

Or, "illegal immigrant" is a sometimes-used dysphemism for "undocumented immigrant". I'm not aware of any other class of people who break a law who are called "illegal" as a result; it's a rather dehumanizing impulse.

What part of "illegal" or "immigrant" implies a person is not a human?

It's just shorthand for "person who has immigrated illegally" anyway, arguing over these words is a distraction. You have any solutions?

Re: The strange and awful path of productivity in the US construction sector

#219

Post by brewdad »

vkou wrote: post #156
swagasaurus-rex wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

All expenses have grown faster than wages, or wages have not kept up with inflation Either way its a pay drop.

> All expenses have grown faster than wages, or wages have not kept up with inflation Your expense is someone else's wage + a capitalist's profit margin. Expenses across the entire economy can only outgrow wages if someone's taking a bigger slice of profit off the top. When we talk about inflation, we always conflate the two, as if they are the same thing. They are not.

> Expenses across the entire economy can only outgrow wages if someone's taking a bigger slice of profit off the top.

Have you paid attention to the Delta between executive pay and that of general labor over the past 4 decades? This is exactly what has been happening.

Re: The strange and awful path of productivity in the US construction sector

#220

Post by cptskippy »

tristor wrote: post #99
pirate787 wrote: post #39

In this time-period there has been a large-scale introduction of undocumented workers into the construction labor force. They are a quarter of some construction labor categories. Perhaps using undocumented subcontractors may play a role in lower productivity growth (cheap, unstable, and relatively unskilled labor) or maybe just distorting the statistics. https://www.americanprogress.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/02/...

I think this is one of the major impacts. My experience (family in construction) is that day labor / undocumented workers often don't have construction skills, and so have to be trained on the job, and each crew has mostly new/unskilled folks with a few skilled folks to guide them and keep them on track. Over time, these folks become skilled, and generally end up running crews. It's very commonplace to find the more…

Just speaking from my experience with a protracted remodel...

> and each crew has mostly new/unskilled folks with a few skilled folks to guide them and keep them on track.

In some cases the crew changes from day-to-day so any context a work has on a particular job isn't necessarily carried over form day-to-day. The day laborers are highly dependent on the crew chief for direction.

> It's very commonplace to find the more experience undocumented workers being the ones running small subcontract crews under the table with day labor, because they speak fluent Spanish.

This too introduces inefficiencies if that crew chief isn't present, late, or leaves the site for any reason. And often the crew chief will instruct works to do the wrong thing, or lacks the knowledge (e.g. electrical) to challenge something.

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