HOUSTON - If you build it, they will come.
Construction employment has gone up across the nation, but nowhere more than in Houston, The Woodlands and Sugar Land, where 29,500 new jobs have come in since September 2017. Some of that can be attributed to rebuilding from Hurricane Harvey, but not all of it.
Ken Simonson, Chief Economist with Associated General Contractors of America, says, "In the Houston area, there's been added activity because of the revival of oil and gas, drilling and exports."
Simonson says contractors face two challenges, "Finding qualified workers and dealing with rising and unpredictable material costs." Those material costs have been made three times more costly than the consumer index because of recent tariff wars that have been happening.