Micro Economics Chapter 2

Submitted By Ringsted89
Words: 661
Pages: 3

ECO-202, micro economics, Spring 2013
Article 3
This article is about how contractors are having a hard time finding qualified workers now that they’ve started needing them again. When the world economy first crashed, a lot of workers lost their jobs, and a lot of these people had to find other ways of putting food on the table. So they left the building industry for something else, and now that they are needed again they are all doing something else.
If we look at the market for building new buildings, the demand has been very low in the last few years. The demand went down because households had a fall in income, so it was affected by the income elasticity. The demand went down because this is what we consider a “normal good”, so it’s not something people need. In the short run this demand has a high elasticity because people don’t need it right away, they can just buy an old house instead of building a new one. But in the long run, houses are going to break down and people will need to build new once, so the elasticity will become lower, and they’ll start building again.
However, if they can’t find qualified workers the supply of construction might reach a limit while the demand is going to keep rising. This will most likely cause the prices to rise. It’s going to take some time for the market to adjust the supply of construction through the education of new construction workers.

Construction jobs are difficult to fill
By Chris Isidore @CNNMoney February 1, 2013: 12:58 PM ET
Builders say it's getting harder to find the construction workers they need to keep up with the home building rebound.
NEW YORK (CNNMoney)
Construction has been a major driver of hiring in recent months, but now builders are having trouble finding the workers they need.
Friday's January jobs report showed that construction added 28,000 jobs in January, about 18% of the the jobs created overall. It's the fourth straight month of strong construction job gains as home building has rebounded. Low mortgage rates, rising home prices and low inventories of new homes for sale are expected to continue to boost the housing recovery through 2013.
But builders say hiring has been crimped because they and their subcontractors are unable to find the skilled construction workers.
"The bodies are just not there," said Johnny Yates, vice president of Rampart Construction in the Dallas-Fort Worth area.
Rampart, which specializes in the booming multi-family home sector, added about 25 workers in 2012. The