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an average pool of 450,000 potential workers. It is also indicated that 85 percent of the unemployed in the construction field, or 381,300, are highway-type employees. The distribution of these unemployed highway construction-type workmen and those employed on highway construction in 1954 is shown in table 1 by the class of work they perform.

TABLE I.-Available manpower for highway contractors' labor requirements

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In the 1954 highway-construction program of $4 billion, certain items of expenditure must be excluded because they are not involved in highway-construction contracts to any appreciable extent. These are the costs of right-ofway engineering and the amount of work put in place by force account labor. When these costs are deducted, a net total remains of approximately $3.1 billion that was expended in 1954 through highway-construction contracts. A round figure of $3 billion is sufficiently accurate for purposes of this report.

From table 1 it appears that contractors must have 78,000 job site workmen for each $1 billion of highway construction put in place. This, however, is not the case. Studies disclose that as the volume of work offered to highway contractors increases the number of workmen employed per unit volume of work decreases. For example, in 1948, 125,000 job site employees were used per billion dollars worth of highway construction while in 1954 only 78,000 were employed on the job to perform the same amount of work. Many factors have contributed to this relationship. Probably the most important is the increased mechanization of highway construction and contract operation. Larger and more efficient machines also are contributing factors. The use of prefabrication to an increasing extent has also tended to reduce manpower requirements. There are others too, some of which will be dealt with later on. Table 2 gives the adjusted manpower requirements for the various program levels for removing existing highway deficiencies in a 10-year period.

From table 2 the problems in respect to manpower in an expanded program begin to be clear. The shortage of equipment operators is shown to be the most critical. This and shortages in other classes of labor, however, must be considered in the light of certain pertinent factors. While authorized projects are being advanced to the construction stage, there will be an opportunity to train extra equipment operators and to develop other skills where shortages are indicated. As far as operators are concerned, the problem should not be too difficult. Modern equipment is far easier to operate than the older models and men can be trained as operators in a fraction of the time it used to take. This fact is borne out by the reports from the contractors; only 15 percent of those responding to the questionnaire consider that a lack of equipment operators might be a factor likely to limit or retard their expansion.

Another source of additional equipment operators, truck drivers, cement finishers and others, both skilled and unskilled, for highway construction is from contractors now engaged in other than highway work but who have organizations with similar skills and the equipment required for highway construction operations. An expanded program offering work over a 10-year period would be a strong incentive to such contractors to convert to highway construction, especially when the work in their present field is declining. For instance, the new construction level for military facilities is $0.5 billion lower than last year. Conservation and development construction is about $0.1 billion lower than last year. The industrial building level, both public and private, which is similar

TABLE II.-Contractors' manpower needs and available suppply for various program levels

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in many ways to bridge construction will probably be $0.4 billion lower this year than last. Railroad construction also is lower. Such trends could provide the necessary manpower to make up any deficits in workmen needed for an expanded highway construction program.

Another source of additional manpower is from the growing population of this country. In 1940 there were 77,400,000 persons in the age group from 20 to 64. By 1950 there were 87,755,000 and by last year 90,064,000. The Bureau of the Census forecasts that the number will have grown to 94,469,000 by 1960. Therefore, the pool of potential employees from which highway constructions workers can be drawn is increasing at the rate of 600,000 per year from population increases alone.

CONTRACTOR'S EQUIPMENT

One hundred years ago, only 5 percent of construction operations were performed with machines, while 95 percent were accomplished by men and beasts. Today the situation is just the reverse with machines operating on gasoline, diesel fuel, steam, or electricity performing 95 percent of the work and men and beasts doing the rest. Modern highway construction contractors rely heavily on equipment for efficiently accomplishing their operations. Table 3 gives the major units owned by these contractors or available to them through equipment rental firms.

TABLE III.—Equipment available to contractors in 1954 for highway construction

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11,000

15,000

15,000

11,000

Off highway hauling equipment (trucks, trailers and wagons).

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2, 500 1,200 65, 700 11,000 4, 500 5,400 38, 500

1,080

1,470

1,470

8, 100

2,000

3,000

6,700

2,300

19, 552

215, 072

10, 750

38, 500

35, 200

3, 950

88,400

303, 472

Questionnaire reports recently received from contractors indicate that for an average investment of $1 in construction equipment, $4.50 worth of highway construction can be put in place in 1 year. While such ratios are useful and even necessary in anticipating equipment needs, they have resulted in so much confusion in many past instances that this task force strongly recommends that they neither be accepted nor used without clear understanding of the basis. In this instance, the contractors were giving an estimate of what could be accomplished with full, not average utilization of all the equipment which they own. By classes of work, the annual requirements are: earthmoving, $1 worth of equipment for $2.67 of work; surfacing, $1 worth of equipment for $5.42 worth of work; structures, $1 worth of equipment for each $7.10 worth of work; and other, $1 worth of equipment for each $6.10 worth of work. Here again it appears that the contractors feel that they were operating in 1954 at less than 50 percent of the capacity since they put in place highway construction valued at only $2.09 for each $1 of equipment inventory.

The questionnaire reports indicate that only 6 percent of the contractors feel that the availability of equipment is a factor which may retard or limit their expansion. With an expanded highway program as an incentive to equipment manufacturers plus decline in demand from other construction fields, it may be anticipated that highway construction equipment will be in good supply.

It is clear that a 10 percent improvement in equipment utilization would be the equivalent of increasing the equipment fleet by 26,000 units. A larger highway program would afford an opportunity for greater utilization and greater production from the individual units, each fleet, and from the combination of all units. Many highway contractors tripled the capacity of their organizations during the last war, in part for these reasons.

Accidents cut down on the productive capacity of equipment fleets. Equipment is one of the chief sources of accidents on highway construction and the frequency and severity rates for highway construction are considerably higher than those for the construction industry as a whole. This situation can and should be improved.

Studies of active highway construction projects indicate that a variety of delays occur which substantially reduce the productive time of equipment. Breakdowns of one unit in the field sometimes tie up a whole operation and all the equipment involved. Usually these are the fault of poor servicing or maintenance and can be corrected through better supervision. State, county and local highway departments which are using radio communications unanimously report that through this medium equipment fleets can be managed more efficiently, and that closer control can be maintained over such activities, as flow of materials to jobs, dispatching mechanics and parts to repair broken-down equipment and by other prompt actions. The wider use of radio by conrtactors could do likewise.

OTHER FACTORS

There are other factors which affect the contractors' ability and readiness to perform at his maximum capacity. Such things as administrative delays attributable to the highway departments are cited by 63 percent of the contractors reporting as a factor most likely to retard or limit their expansion. The percentage of payment retention by the owner is cited by 24 percent of the contractors as another factor. Slowness in paying estimates is another reason reported by 30 percent of the contractors while 28 percent state that difficulty in obtaining capital may limit or retard their expansion.

In order to determine the effect of the distribution of the $101 billion in various areas of the country, an estimate was made of the annual levels of the program in each of four geographic regions. In each case the total was broken down into the dollar volume of earthmoving, surfacing, structures and other incidental work. These data and the States in each region are shown in table IV. Also included is the contractors' estimate of maximum annual capacity to perform the various classes of work in each region. From this table it can be seen that the geographic distribution of highway construction has a definite bearing on the ability and readiness of contractors in a given area to accomplish the required work. While there is some mobility amongst highway contractors, it is problematical whether it is sufficient to offset the shortages indicated in some instances. The solution probably is in the direction of expansion of active contractors' capacity within a region, conversion of those now in other fields and accession of new contractors.

FINDINGS

1. In 1954 highway contractors operated at only 46.4 percent of productive capacity.

2. Contractors could support a maximum highway program of $7.4 billion in 1 year with present organizations and equipment without highway department delays enumerated herein.

3. Shortages of equipment operators would not be a serious problem because sufficient lead time would be available to train and to secure additional operators. In addition, other shortages, which appear in the estimates of manpower requirements, can readily be overcome through conversion to highway construction of contractors now engaged in other similar work. Training and greater supply of highway workers through population increases would supplement these sources.

4. Equipment available for highway construction either through contractors' inventories or by rental is estimated to have the necessary productive capacity for a $7.4 billion program. Additional equipment to meet the needs of higher annual program levels and for replacements could be made readily available through production expansions.

5. A larger highway construction program would foster proportionately greater productive capacity through more efficient utilization of equipment.

6. Greater productive capacity can be obtained from manpower and equipment through reduction of accidents, the reduction of nonproductive time caused by equipment breakdowns and by closer control over operations, possibly through wider use of radio.

TABLE IV.-Contractors' present capacity compared with 10-year $101 billion program requirements by regions 1 and types of work

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1 Region 1: Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont, Connecticut, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Maryland, Delaware, District of Columbia. Region 2: Kentucky, West Virginia, Virginia, Tennessee, North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, Alabama, Mississippi, Florida, Arkansas, Louisiana. Region 3: North Dakota, South Dakota, Nebraska, Minnesota, Wisconsin, Michigan, Iowa, Illi

nois, Indiana, Ohio, Kansas, Missouri, Oklahoma. Region 4: Montana, Wyoming, Colorado, New Mexico, Texas, Arizona, Utah, Idaho, Oregon, Washington, Nevada, California.

This is the maximum annual capacity with organizations and equipment owned by contractors in 1954 when the program level was $4 billion.

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