Minority Ownership of Construction Firms Increases

A study by the National Association of Home Builders found that the number of minority owned construction firms rose 44% from 2007 to 2012, from 109,000 up to around 157,000 in the United States. David Adelhardt at Adelhardt Construction has worked on programs that support minority owned construction firms and has also worked with other industry executives to increase minority participation in construction projects.

The number of one-person minority firms without a payroll increased 49% during this period of time, while the number of firms with paid employees increased just 5%. This reflects the overall industry trend of an increasing number of one-person residential construction shops. At a recent Associated Builders and Contractors diversity conference in Washington D.C., construction executives like David Adelhardt met to discuss minority involvement in the construction industry.

Minority owned construction companies have the advantage of being able to participate in minority business/disadvantaged business programs that require a percentage of publicly funded projects to be reserved for minority owned businesses. High performing minority owned businesses have an opportunity to get large contracts in these circumstances.

Construction companies like Adelhardt Construction seeks to attract minority workers in order to address the skilled labor shortage. By the year 2030, according to the Brookings Institute, 15 million Caucasians will have exited the workforce while 3 million African Americans, 17 million Hispanics, and 4 million Asians will have entered into the workforce. As a result of these trends, David Adelhardt and Adelhardt Construction have made it a priority to hire minority workers.