| According to a quarterly labor
market survey of 16,000 employers, 42 percent of contractors
plan to hire more workers in the second quarter of this year,
and only 4 percent said that they would be laying off workers.
The survey was commissioned by Manpower, Inc., the nation’s
largest employment service.
A hiring increase of this size has not been
seen since 1978.
Employment outlook in the trade, services and
durable goods manufacturing sectors are also looking very good
in 2004, according to Manpower.
But this isn’t supposed to be happening, according
to the skeptics. After all, China is going through a building
boom, and is absorbing construction materials from all over
the world, pushing up prices and creating shortages. All true,
but that’s not the whole story.
What is happening in China is such an unprecendented
event that Architectural Record, an architectural journal magazine,
dedicated nearly 50 pages of its March issue to what is going
on there.
According to an article by Clifford A. Pearson
in Architectural Record, “China is spending about $375 billion
each year on construction, nearly 16 percent of its gross domestic
product. In the process, it is using 54.7 percent of the world’s
production of concrete, 36.1 percent of the world’s steel, and
30.4 percent of the world’s coal.”
The Three Gorges Dam alone is costing $24.65
billion. It’s reservoir will flood many towns and cities, all
of which have to be reconstructed on higher ground.
Beijing captured the 2008 summer Olympics, which
is also spurring a construction boom as they build many new
structures to handle thousands who will attend the games.
According to Pearson, China will be going through
an enormous transformation during the first two decades of this
century. As more jobs are created in the major cities, 200 million
people are expected to move from rural China into urban areas
during that time, further fueling the construction boom.
Our image of China is one of streets filled
with bicycles and few cars. But even that has changed in some
cities, where new infrastructure has been constructed. There
are so many cars in Shanghai that bicycles have been banned
from new streets and highways.
Much of China’s new construction are small projects,
but many of them are very large. Here are just a few that were
listed in Architectural Record.
The Beijing Books Building, a $77 million bookstore.
The ZhongGuanCun West Office Complex, a 1 million square foot
complex of buildings that will include a 500 foot tall office
building.
The Boan Residential Development, 2.1 million square feet micro-city.
The Suzhou Museum, 1.6 million square feet.
The National Grand Theater is a $325 million structure that
is actually a complex of several structures that includes a
2,416 seat opera hall, a 2,017 seat concert hall and other support
structures, all of which are placed under a glass-and-titatium
eggshell-shaped dome that is 692 feet long and 195 feet high.
The CCTV Headquarters ( for China’s largest television broadcaster)
is a 760 foot high, pretzel-shaped building with gravity-defying
cantilevered arms that hover over 500 above the ground.
Many of these new buildings are being designed
by American architects and engineers, some of whom have opened
branch offices in China.
China is getting much of its money for construction
from foreign investors, who have pumped an enormous amount of
capital into China.
The concern in America and other parts of the
world is that China’s demand for building materials and the
resulting shortages will have a detrimental affect on our economy.
However, in spite of higher prices, demand for new construction
in America is still very strong.
I believe that construction prices will moderate
as manufacturers step up production of materials to meet demand.
As more cash pours into America from China through the sale
of building materials and services at premium prices, more jobs
in America are going to be created.
In the short run, construction costs are going
to be higher, but in the long run, they will come back down
to normal levels.
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