Cabinet officials met recently in Washington, DC to encourage creativity that will increase private investment in highways, bridges, and other infrastructure. U.S. Transportation Secretary Anthony Foxx and Treasury Secretary Jacob Lew led the brainstorming summit, and shared details on public-private-partnership projects that are getting underway in Florida and Pennsylvania. Lew says the…(Read More)
A monumental win that will bring 22,000 jobs and pump $100 billion into Nevada’s economy over the next 20 years. At a press conference on Thursday, Gov. Brian Sandoval and Tesla Motors’ CEO Elon Musk announced that Nevada will be home to Tesla’s massive $5 billion lithium gigabattery plant. MSN.com reports…(Read More)
Road work—especially on highways—is an ongoing problem for firefighters and many other emergency responders. Are construction companies aware of how traffic, detours, and broken up road surfaces challenge emergency crews in life and death situations? This story from Fort Worth, TX offers insights from the other side. http://www.betterroads.com/highway…(Read More)
I have a Facebook contact who frequently bashes her employer on her posts. Does her employer have to take that or can they take employment action? Social media has been around long enough now that there is a decent amount of legal precedent. But as you might expect, the answer is, it depends. If the…(Read More)
Recent graduates entering the workforce have been barraged by media reports about high unemployment and low wages, but there’s good news for the Class of 2014. Overall, average starting salaries were $48,707, up 7.5 percent from the 2013 class, according to The Wall Street Journal. “Engineers topped the earnings list with average…(Read More)
Noting more than 4,400 on-the-job worker fatalities in 2013, leaders at the Occupational Safety and Health Administration have announced a new rule aimed at improving employee safety. Effective January 1, 2015, employers under OSHA’s jurisdiction will have to notify the agency of work-related fatalities within eight hours, and work-related…(Read More)
Construction companies continue the struggle to fully staff projects. The skilled labor shortage is giving workers the edge in busy markets such as Houston, but quieter areas are also short-staffed. How bad is it? Camden Property Trust, a Houston-based apartment developer has recently started putting guards on job sites to keep its workers…(Read More)
Care to guess the top 2013 revenue makers in the commercial construction sector? High-profile projects helped bring in huge revenues for these companies. For example, the firm that built the Hoover Dam (Bechtel Corporation) had $30.7 billion in revenue last year. The company that constructed the new Yankee Stadium (Turner Construction) brought in…(Read More)
Not everyone agrees on the issue of climate change, but many cities around the U.S. are planning for major infrastructure improvements to help with natural disasters. A growing number of local government leaders, such as those in Dubuque, Iowa, are beginning to take on problems that could be linked to climate change. For instance…(Read More)
“About 7.1 million Americans were employed in construction-related occupations last year—and only 2.6 percent were women,” according to a recent story from the Associated Press. “That percentage has scarcely budged since the 1970s, while women have made gains since then in many other fields.” One group rising to meet the challenge…(Read More)
