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Housing's Downturn Idles Hands In State

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By MICHAEL SASSO, The Tampa Tribune

Published: September 4, 2007

TAMPA - The lure of quick money - and lots of it - in the home building business was too tempting for Michael Dizzine to pass up, even when his heart told him to become a firefighter.

A strapping 23-year-old with a fondness for bull riding and buck hunting, the St. Cloud native set aside his dream of becoming a firefighter to join Florida's home construction industry, which promised strong wages for blue-collar work. He landed work laying pipe. His paychecks were good at $15 an hour, good enough to help pay his wife's way through nursing school.

But after its peak in summer 2005, the housing market began to fizzle.

Dizzine's employer, Chapman Contracting, began cutting his hours, a little at first, but eventually laying off him along with all of his co-workers.

'It was so easy to go into construction out of high school and make $400, $500 a week. Now I'm regretting it,' said Dizzine, who has been out of work since July.

Dizzine is one of many people in Florida who entered the construction business during recent years, only to get dragged down in its swift downturn.

The state has lost more than 14,000 construction jobs in the past year, and some economists are projecting that the housing slump could linger another year or two. That could further weigh down construction job prospects. Although some construction workers have landed new jobs in the state's booming commercial building industry, there isn't enough of that work to go around.

Some construction workers who still have jobs report taking pay cuts of up to 25 percent and having their hours trimmed to part time. Some are filing for personal bankruptcy.

In the long term, the fallout from the housing slump raises questions about what will happen to Florida's economy - and the legion of construction workers depending on the residential home building industry - if the state's real estate market stays depressed or, worse, if commercial construction slows, too.

The construction field accounted for more than 8 percent of all nonagricultural jobs in the state last year.

At least until Florida's housing market picks up, 'in my opinion, they are not going to be able to replace the wages they were making in construction,' said Ed Peachey, executive director of WorkNet Pinellas, a government-run employment and training organization. 'They are probably looking at going into a field that does not pay as much.'

Pay Cuts Common In Bay Area

According to data from the Florida Agency for Workforce Innovation, there were about 624,500 construction jobs in Florida in July. That is a drop of about 2.2 percent, or about 14,200 jobs, from July 2006.

Those jobs paid relatively high wages for blue-collar work. Construction jobs in Hillsborough County, for example, paid an average wage of $825 a week last year, slightly higher than the average wage for all industries in the county of $777 a week, state data show.

The Bay area lost about 400 construction jobs in the past year, according to state data. Michael Garcia, work force services manager for the employment and retraining agency Tampa Bay Workforce Alliance, said commercial construction is picking up some of the slack.

'While there is a higher number of people being laid off in construction this year, the market is still a solid market,' Garcia said.

However, recent interviews with about 20 construction workers and subcontractors in the Bay area suggest the employment data do not reflect the steep pay cuts they are seeing. Several mentioned friends or family members who left Florida to look for construction work in New Orleans, Tennessee or the Carolinas.

For example, Carpenter Contractors of America, based in Winter Haven, may have cut as many as two-thirds of its roughly 400 employees in the past year, foreman Bob Mollohan said. Calls to Carpenter Contractors were not returned.

In Pasco County, Plumbers of Suojanen Enterprises employed more 200 people a year ago, but today the number is down to about 100, Chief Executive Officer Erik Suojanen said. The employees he has retained once were working heavy overtime but now are working just four days a week, Suojanen said.

During the second quarter of 2007, construction began on 1,981 single-family homes and town homes in Citrus, Hernando, Pasco, Hillsborough and Pinellas counties, according to housing research firm Metrostudy. That was down from 5,521 single-family and town home starts in the second quarter of 2005, the height of the area's housing construction boom.

Signs of hard times among construction trades are everywhere:

•In Tampa, bankruptcy lawyer Patrick Smith says he's seeing a spike in clients who are construction workers seeking bankruptcy protection. 'I've probably handled five to 10 cases in the last six months of construction workers surrendering their homes, packing up and moving out of state,' Smith said.

•Bernard Roush, president of a small masonry company in Spring Hill, says out-of-work laborers see the Roush Masonry sign on his truck and approach him at odd times and places, desperate for work.

'I've actually had guys knock on my door at home,' Roush said. 'I've had guys come up to me at stores. The trouble is, I don't have the work to give them.'

•Salvador Rocha is a carpentry superintendent for a crew of Hispanic workers from Wauchula, about 50 miles southeast of Tampa. His crew used to work in Sebring. Recently they have been traveling to Riverview on a KB Home town house project.

Still, his workers count themselves lucky despite the long drives. Some laid-off carpenters are seeking lower-paying jobs in slaughterhouses or nurseries, Rocha said.

They Came To Build

According to data from the Florida Agency for Workforce Innovation, from July 1990 through July 2007, construction employment in Florida rose by 69.2 percent. That outpaced the growth in overall nonagricultural jobs, which increased 51.5 percent.

Jack Goneau, owner of JDM Master Painters, moved to Sarasota from Boston four years ago, eager to tap the state's seemingly endless supply of new home construction.

With the current slump, Goneau has scored some commercial contracts painting mall stores. But the work is taking him out of state more and more. During a recent interview, he had just returned from painting a mall store in Lafayette, La., and expected to travel to Baton Rouge in several weeks. After that, he may travel to Texas.

'I was told, 'If you come down to Florida, the market's yours,'' Goneau said. 'It is completely opposite of what I was told.'

Shifting to manufacturing work is an option for construction workers, but those jobs have been declining for years. In July, 396,500 people were employed in manufacturing in Florida, down from 491,600 people in July 1990, state data show.

Lilliam Larsen, Florida regional director for Manpower Inc., said that in rural markets such as Brooksville or Lakeland, Manpower sometimes can place construction workers with mining companies.

In urban markets such as Tampa, the biggest demand for workers is in clerical jobs, she said. Construction workers often avoid taking other jobs because the pay is lower than what they are accustomed to or they prefer construction work's seasonal nature, Larsen said.

Dizzine, the laid-off construction worker, says he isn't waiting for housing construction to rebound. His layoff got him thinking about a new career. About a week ago he started emergency medical technician training; after that he hopes to move on to a firefighting academy.

For the past several years, he paid the bills while his wife went to nursing school at the University of South Florida. Now a nurse, his wife will pay the bills until Dizzine finishes school.

'Yes sir, by God's will, I'll be back to work by next summer,' he said.

Reporter Michael Sasso can be reached at (813) 259-7865 or msasso@tampatrib.com.

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