In some construction fields, job market strong in region

Tight supply of qualified candidates and a reasonably healthy construction sector mean engineers and construction managers likely won’t have too much trouble finding jobs in Northern Colorado.

For employers that means attending to retention.

“It’s a wonderful time to be a construction management graduate,” says Jeni Moore, coordinator of the Phelps Placement Office in Colorado State University’s Department of Construction Management.

Moore describes the job market for construction management graduates with enthusiasm. “It’s outstanding. It’s just off the charts. We’re placing every student we have in the program and we honestly could place more than that.”

Moore said CSU graduates about 100 construction management students each semester. Do they all get jobs? “If they want them.”

Last semester’s graduates went to positions paying an average of $46,500. Those who accepted positions in Northern Colorado probably accepted about $2,000 less than that.

Colorado State University statistics for engineering graduates from the class of 2005 show an average starting salary of $46,000, with 42 percent of the class employed. That’s a bit higher than average starting salaries nationwide, according to U.S. Department of Labor statistics, which show civil engineers graduating with a bachelor’s degree starting at an average of $43,679.

Experienced engineers needed

Newly graduated engineers may face a somewhat different employment market than that for construction managers in Northern Colorado.

Bud Curtiss, vice president of Northern Engineering, a Fort Collins firm employing civil engineers and surveyors, said experienced engineers can be difficult to recruit. Those fresh out of college may need to look elsewhere for larger firms that have more resources and training programs for new engineers.

For his business, “The hardest thing probably is to find people who are qualified.” Curtiss said his firm is approached by a lot of just-graduated engineers, “but they don’t have a lot of practice or experience in the field. So to find somebody with three to five years of experience or more who isn’t already employed is pretty tough.”

Northern Engineering currently employs 20 civil engineers.

To find suitable candidates, Curtiss said his company relies mostly on word of mouth. The company rarely advertises and doesn’t usually use headhunters. “The best thing is, a lot of times, word of mouth: somebody who knows somebody or a friend of a friend.”

The business focuses on finding prospective employees who will be a good fit in the company both personally and professionally, Curtiss said. Retention is important, as well.

“We just try real hard to treat them well,” Curtiss said. “We pay them commensurate with what they’re going to get elsewhere and allow them the opportunity to grow professionally.”

Curtiss and other employers in Northern Colorado say hiring can be competitive. “It’s a pretty tight-knit community. People know who’s working for who.”

The job market for engineers is bolstered in Northern Colorado by the fact that there is a lot of work being done right now. “We’re busy,” observes Lester Litton, president of Earth Engineering Consultants.

Earth Engineering, based in Windsor, employs four engineers. “We’re in a kind of specialized field,” he notes. “We are a subset of civil engineering” involving geotechnical work.

Litton, too, said experienced engineer hires are in shorter supply. “It’s harder to find somebody in the five- to 10-year (experience) range.”

As a result, Litton noted, “You’re always kind of looking. If the right candidate comes along, a really strong candidate that would fit in well with your organization, the fact is you’re probably going to hire whether or not you have an immediate need.”

Modest future growth

The Colorado Department of Labor predicts employment in the construction management and civil engineering fields will grow modestly through 2012. The department’s Web site shows a 1.8 percent estimated rate of employment growth for construction managers between 2002 and 2012. The growth rate over the same period for civil engineers is 2.9 percent.

Colorado, meanwhile, had the third-highest concentration of civil engineers as a percentage of total state employment, according to U.S. Department of Labor statistics for 2004. First and second are Washington state and Alaska.

The Department of Labor reported 1.4 million engineers employed nationwide; 16.4 percent or 237,000 of those were civil engineers.

Construction management accounted for a total of 431,000 jobs nationwide, according to the Department of Labor. Of those, 50 percent were self-employed; 18 percent were employed by general building contractors and 13 percent by specialty contractors.

Colorado’s civil engineers ranked somewhat farther down the list when it came to wages in 2004. An hourly mean wage of $31.98 that year in Colorado compared with top-paying Washington D.C. at $39.13 or an annual mean wage of $81,390. Following D.C. were Nevada at $36.12, California, $36.10, Massachusetts, $35.06 and New York, $34.91.

Construction managers nationwide see an hourly mean wage of $38.50. The top five highest paying states in that field are New York, with an hourly mean wage of $52.53, New Jersey, $52.02, Washington, $47.09, Massachusetts, $46.59, and Connecticut, $46.04.

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