Dropping Oil Prices Could Help Home Labor Shortage

Follow CBSDFW.COM: Facebook|Twitter

DALLAS (CBS 11 NEWS) - Too few people to build too many homes. The housing market continues to boom in North Texas, but builders have seen a severe shortage of skilled and unskilledworkers in the last couple of years.

Many blame the oil and gas industry for offering higher pay opportunities that home builders cant meet.

But with oil hitting a five year low, the concern now turns to job loss and the potential economic slow down in Texas, where 15 percent of the economy is tied to energy.

Bud Weinstein is the Associate Director of the Maguire Energy Institute at SMUs Cox School of Business. He thinks if prices stay in the $55-$60 a barrel range, the Texas housing market could see an impact in the next six months, especially in Houston or Midland-Odessa, where the local economies are closely tied to oil.

However, Weinstein says its less likely North Texass housing market will take a hit. Corporate relocations and other industries are helping grow the DFW area.

As Vice President of the Texas Association of Home Builders, Tim Jackson sees a positive result of the oil slow down: the potential for laborers lost to oil jobs to return to home building.

Danny White, a construction manager for Tim Jackson Custom Homes, explains:

If we had more labor, we could build the houses quicker. Right now were having about a 20 percent delay in the time it takes to build a house. Our workers are so busy, and its hard finding people to do the jobs, White said.

Jackson estimates thousands of labors have relocated from home construction to work in the oil field.

Visit link:
Dropping Oil Prices Could Help Home Labor Shortage