A National Association of Home Builders (NAHB) poll finds that very few young people want to become builders. NAHB conducted a national poll of young adults aged 18 to 25 to find out how this age group feels about a career in the construction trades. The majority of young adults (74%) say they know the field in which they want to have a career. Of these, only 3% are interested in the construction trades.
Most of the young people interested in the trades say that the two most important benefits of this career choice are good pay (80%) and the attainment of useful skills (74%). Less than half cite as benefits that the work is seasonal (15%) or that it does not require a college degree (37%).
The 26% of respondents who do not yet know the career path they want to take got a follow-up question about the chance they might consider a number of fields (construction trades being one of them) using a scale from 1 to 5, where 1 meant “no chance no matter the pay” and 5 meant “very good chance if the pay is high” (see Image #2 below). Construction trades got an average rating of 2.1, with 63% of undecided young adults rating it 1 or 2 (no or little chance regardless of pay) and 18% a 4 or 5 (good to very good chance if pay is high).
The 63% of undecided young adults who indicated there was no or little chance they would consider a career in the trades no matter the pay were prodded about the reasons for their resoluteness. The two most common reasons are wanting a less physically demanding job (48%) and the belief that construction work is difficult (32%).
They were then asked if there was any compensation level that might entice them to reconsider a career in the trades. For slightly more than 20%, that number is either $75,000 or $100,000, but for the plurality (43%), there is no amount of money that could make them give the trades a second thought.
A complete research paper on this topic can be found here, including an analysis of government data on actual wages for construction occupations relevant to the home building industry.
This story was written by Rose Quint, assistant vice president for survey research at the National Association of Home Builders, and was originally published at NAHB’s Eye on Housing website. It has also appeared at Green Building Advisor.
