Who Will Build Kansas City’s Tomorrow?

PUBLISHED JANUARY 2024

Kansas City is gaining development traction with more construction projects entering the pipeline—even as construction firms continue to address a longstanding labor shortage striking the industry.

One of the main factors contributing to the labor shortage is the lack of qualified and properly trained workers. Sixty-eight percent of construction firms reported applicants lack the skills needed to work in construction, according to the Associated General Contractors of America’s 2023 Annual Workforce Survey. And the shortage is having an impact: 61 percent of firms said they experienced delays in projects due to a low workforce, in addition to delays spawned by long lead times for materials.

The issue is not insignificant: Nearly 57,000 people are employed in construction jobs in the Kansas City metropolitan area, according to the U.S. Census Bureau’s Quarterly Workforce Indicators.

Although overall employment of construction laborers and helpers is estimated to increase by 4 percent from 2022 to 2032, says the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, the number of openings for those roles is projected to average 151,400—every year—for the next decade.

Still, 2023 was a prosperous year for development projects in the region. Large construction projects came online, such as the new Kansas City International in February and the Cordish Co’s. 288-unit Three Light luxury apartment tower Downtown, which opened in September, and the Hunt Midwest Business Center Logistics V industrial building.

Many others remain on the horizon. Master’s Transportation is raising a new headquarters in Kansas City, a 310,000-square-foot office and vehicle-manufacturing facility scheduled to be completed in 2025. And Olathe is expecting Heartland Coca-Cola’s nearly 1.2 million-square-foot site to be completed late this year. 

Big Tech, which has been diving into the Kansas City market for several years now, is expected to attract others as current projects are completed. Among them is the $800 million Meta data center, set to be completed in 2025, and a $600 million Google data campus was announced in late December. The Kansas City Royals’ new ballpark, while the franchise has not officially set an official location, will become a new undertaking for the regional construction workforce to tackle. 

Tim Cowden, CEO of the Kansas City Area Development Council, hosted a discussion earlier this month with Leslie Duke, the new CEO of Burns & McDonnell, and Lance Claiborne, the new president of The Builders. The topic: The need for more workers who will build the growing number of projects.

Already, Cowden said, “16,000 jobs are created by entrepreneurs every year in Kansas City.”

Duke, who began her tenure as CEO on Jan. 1, said the construction workforce is dwindling, in large part because a significant portion is aging out and will soon enter retirement.

“We see a lot of things happening around the electrification around America, which will take an enormous amount of investment, and our workforce is aging out,” she said. “We got to bring the new fresh blood in and ask them to engage in a meaningful way about building the future of this country.”

While workers exiting the construction stage is a prominent issue, it is still only one piece of the labor puzzle, Duke said.

“The volume and the amount of investment is the biggest problem with scale and volume of work that is being met right now, which is just astronomical,” she said. “We have got to get a workforce established quickly, and it is difficult because of the complexities of new technologies and best practices that the new professionals will need to be properly trained in.”

Claiborne hopes to fuel a desire for construction jobs within families as new generations start looking for jobs in other industries. A desire that stems from his experiences finding out his father worked as a summer laborer until after graduating college. It’s something he wishes had been talked about at the dinner table, he said.  

“The question is, how do we build a very intentional pipeline that incorporates access to everybody and not just the individuals who are already in construction?” Claiborne said. “So let’s open the doors to allow people in this space to truly have access to what construction can offer.”

One of those doors opened when the Builders, a local chapter of the AGC, partnered with Burns & McDonnell to unveil the Career Development & Exploration Center in October.

“It is a reflection of our need in the Kansas City marketplace right now,” Cowden said.

The North Kansas City center covers 3,300 square feet and will train the next generation of construction workers, with additional training modules planned for this year.

Together, The Builders and Burns & McDonnell are making it their mission to capitalize on the potential workforce waiting to be tapped into and focusing on training these young professionals sooner rather than later. 

The growth of Kansas City’s population over the past five years means there is an increase in young adults, Gen Z in particular, and this region continues to grow compared to other major metropolitan cities. The regional Gen Z population in the workforce has increased by 24 percent since 2017 and continues to attract more graduates and executives seeking to further their careers. The U.S. Census Bureau reported a net migration of more than 52,000 in the Kansas City region from 2011 to 2021.

Since its opening in October, the CDEC has trained nearly 400 individuals and is expected to train between 100 and 200 early-career construction professionals each year, according to Burns & McDonnell. 

“We need to make sure that young people have access to this place,” Claiborne said. “For The Builders, it’s the immersion part of this facility that is most valuable and to have access to the equipment and tools needed to engage with the students.”

“This facility is just Phase One of our partnership, and we are already in discussion about what they [The Builders] need,” Duke said. “The ability to bring people into a physical location with assets inside that give those people hands-on learning experience is advantageous for us and the industry.”

On the national level, employment of construction laborers is projected to increase by 4 percent each year for the next decade, the BLS estimates. That means firms will need to take the initiative in not only employing their future workforce but also expanding their training programs. 

The AGC survey found that 82 percent of firms will be increasing wages and 47 percent will build up their incentives; meanwhile, 60 percent will invest in more training operations. 

Burns & McDonnell has already taken strides to answer the call for a larger and more robust workforce by adding more than 3,700 employees and craft workers to its family of companies in 2023. The company and its leaders don’t expect to pump the brakes anytime soon as Kansas City, and the entirety of the industry, enters what Duke calls a “construction renaissance.”  

“We are helping companies explore the moon, communities resurrect environmental assets, and the use of clean fuels and energy,” she said. “All of those things are about bettering the world we live in, and we get to be a part of building those solutions while also creating new approaches to how we solve those problems. It’s a great time to be in our business and contributing to the world.”