The impact of the skilled construction labor shortage has had a sustained and harmful effect on the construction industry since the worldwide recession (2007 - 2011), when approximately 2 million construction workers were made unemployed around the world. This represented a higher drop in global unemployment than for any other industry.
Since the recession, the construction industry has never been able to recover from the loss of skilled labor and has been characterized by a struggle to fulfill the many construction jobs that are becoming more readily available.