Assessing the Vulnerability of Building Exterior Construction's Labor Wages to Weather-Related Disasters in the United States

摘要

The increased construction costs following large-scale natural disasters, also referred to as demand surge, occur due to the escalated demand for labors and materials. Building exterior construction's labor wages are subject to significant fluctuations following natural disasters; however, there has been no empirical analysis measuring and comparing building exterior labors" wage vulnerability to the natural disasters. The primary objectives of this research are to: (1) quantify the post-disaster labor wage fluctuations for labors working at building exterior construction sector; and (2) highlight the most vulnerable labor markets at this sector of the construction industry. The county-level data on quarterly average weekly wages were collected for more than 100 counties affected by weather-related disasters (floods, storms, and tornadoes) in the United States from 2007 to 2014. Labor wage fluctuations for each sector of building exterior construction is measured as the seasonally adjusted percent change of labor wages in the event of a weather-related disaster. The results of this study show that among the building exterior contractors, masonry contractors-especially non-residential masonry contractors-face the highest inflation in labor wages. In addition, the non-residential labor markets are, in general, more vulnerable to weather-related disasters than the residential labor markets. Moreover, the results show that, in most cases, building exterior contractors face the highest inflation in wages in two quarters after the event of weather-related disasters. It is expected that the results of this study will help policy makers, insurers, reinsures, homeowners, and building exterior construction firms to better understand the post-disaster wage fluctuations of building exterior contractors.