And while stimulus funding will continue supporting transportation projects in the US next year, 44% of American contractors anticipate having to lay off additional permanent employees due to overall economic conditions, the survey found.
Nearly 70% of contractors responding to a survey conducted by the Transportation Construction Coalition (TCC) reported receiving stimulus-funded work so far this year. But 63% also reported they had to lay off permanent employees during 2009 due to adverse business conditions.
“The key to sustainable new job creation in the industry is congressional passage soon of the overdue, long-term federal highway and transit program funding bill, with new resources for the tapped out Highway Trust Fund,” said Mike Acott, president of the National Asphalt Pavement Association.
He said that many state transportation programs had declined in recent years, victims of program cuts precipitated by the recession’s impact on state revenues. “As a result, most transportation contractors have been operating below capacity. The federal stimulus funds made available to states in April, helped offset some of those declines in funding.”
Alison Black, vice president for policy and chief economist for the American Road & Transportation Builders Association, said the requirement that stimulus-funded projects be shovel ready, a term introduced by president Barack Obama, discouraged larger scale and longer-duration projects that sustained long-term personnel and equipment needs from getting funding.
“For example, fewer than 20% of contractor respondents say they plan to purchase new construction equipment (19%) or trucks (18%) next year. And just 5% anticipate bringing on new, non-seasonal personnel.
“Contractors in many states still do not see sustainable, state-funded, market growth on the horizon until the overall economy rebounds significantly,” Black said. “When they hear that the one source of stable funding for the market over the past four years is in doubt, the core federal highway and transit program, it’s not surprising many are tightening operations.”
Despite federal stimulus funding, more than three quarters of the 527 firms responding to the TCC survey, anticipated either a ‘slight’ (46%) or ‘severe’ (32%) decline next year in the state markets in which they work.
More than 76% expected state transportation departments to put out less work to bid on in 2010 than they had this year.
