For Some, the Building Boom Still Booms

Demand Still High for Skilled Tradesmen

By Robert Struckman, 8-02-08

	The Missoula Federal Credit Union building under construction on Russell Street

Ongoing commercial construction has kept skilled tradesmen busy, despite a slowdown in residential housing and word that some developers have fallen behind in their bill-paying to area contractors.

“We just put out word for more carpenters,” said Dennis Daneke, head of Local 28 of the United Brotherhood of Carpenters.

“Commercial construction is still booming, and, right now, we’re booming,” he said.

Residential construction drives commercial, and Montana’s residential construction has only eased significantly in the past six months or so. Most of the commercial projects - including the new First Interstate Bank on Higgins Avenue downtown, an expansion of St. Patrick Hospital, a new Safeway downtown and a new Missoula Federal Credit Union building - have been several years in the works and are slated, in some cases, to last several years.

“We’re kind of lucky,” Daneke said. He hopes that residential construction will have recovered by the time the commercial construction begins to lag. The latest figures from the Bureau of Labor Statistics say both Missoula’s and Montana’s unemployment rate was 4.1 percent in June, up from 3.1 percent a year earlier. The national rate, by comparison, was 5.7 percent in June.

The shortage of skilled tradesmen may be starting to have an effect on wages, Daneke suggested.

“There’s an extreme shortage,” he said. “We’re recruiting nonunion guys to come in for better wages and benefits.”

The sideline to the continued low level of unemployment is that more people are walking through the offices of Missoula Job Service, said Wolfgang Ametsbichler.

“The rate has ticked up fairly marginally,” Ametsbichler said. “The pressure is that the cost of living is going up faster than wages. We see people coming in. They’re looking for additional work.”

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