When we asked respondents earlier this year in EC&M’s Top 50 Electrical Contractors survey to name the single greatest business challenge they would face in the next few years, answers almost unanimously dealt with some version of combating the industry’s skilled labor shortage. In fact, 87% of respondents this year admitted to “experiencing worker shortages” compared to 76% last year. We’ve been hearing this same complaint from our readers for years now, so that particular survey result certainly came as no surprise. What I’m wondering is, had we opened up that question to encompass their top five business challenges, let’s say, what would the other hot-button issues have been? Unfortunately, I’m betting the opioid epidemic might top the conversation. Based on ongoing reports in the news over the last few years, research from several new studies conducted by nonprofit associations, and the latest government agency statistics, the opioid crisis is not only sweeping the country, but it also appears to have a crippling grip on the construction industry in particular.
According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 115 Americans die every day, on average, from an opioid overdose. The National Institute on Drug Abuse offers some insight into how that number could possibly be so staggering: roughly 21% to 29% of patients prescribed opioids for chronic pain misuse them; between 8% and 12% of those patients develop an opioid use disorder; an estimated 4% to 6% who misuse prescription opioids transition to heroin; about 80% of people who use heroin first misused prescription opioids; opioid overdoses increased 30% from July 2016 through September 2017 in 52 areas in 45 states; and the Midwestern region saw opioid overdoses increase 70% from July 2016 through September 2017. As if those statistics weren’t disturbing enough, let’s put the construction industry under the microscope for a moment.
Research conducted by the Midwest Economic Policy Institute (MEPI) in its 2018 report on “Addressing the Opioid Epidemic Among Midwest Construction Workers” puts the numbers into greater perspective, explaining that opioids have had a “disproportionately negative impact on the construction industry.” In fact, an estimated 15% of construction workers have a substance abuse disorder, compared to the national average of 8.6%, according to a survey from the National Safety Council in 2017. No doubt this sobering statistic relates to the fact that the injury rate for construction workers is 77% higher than the national average for other occupations. According to the MEPI report, blue-collar construction and extraction industries “have twice the [substance abuse disorder] rates of educators, professional, office and administrative support workers.” In addition, opioids also “account for about 20% of all total spending on prescription drugs in the construction industry,” which is about five to 10 percentage points higher than its share of spending in other industries.
Freelance Writer Tom Zind takes a deeper dive into the epidemic in this months’ cover story, “Bitter Pill.” In this special report, he reveals why alarm bells are sounding in contractor circles as the opioid addiction and overdose crisis expands, why employers/unions are on high alert, and what steps they’re taking to protect this at-risk workforce. “Opioids clearly present a knotty problem for construction workers and their employers,” Zind writes. “But there may be paths out of the thicket of opioid over-availability, misuse, abuse, and even full-blown addiction. The key is recognizing the problem, meeting it head on, and, most importantly, adopting an approach of smart management when workers are caught in opioids’ clutches.”
