Pub. 2 2019-2020 Issue 1

16 Industry experts have identified the following issues that are affecting the asphalt industry: 1. Labor shortages within the asphalt and trucking industries 2. Funding for roads 3. Disruptionwithin the industry caused by new technology 4. Fewer material sources Two of the problems (getting necessary funds tobuild roads andhaving fewermate- rial resources) are problems that will be solved by people outside the industry. • Funding will have to be solved on a state and federal level because that’s where the responsibility lies for repairing and improv- ing the existing infrastructure. • Fewer material sources is a problem that has to do with the number of available oil refineries. The U.S. is seeing many oil refineries close; of the remaining ones, not all of them are important to the asphalt industry. The job there is to identify which refineries are the best material sources for the asphalt indus- try, and those are the ones that need to be courted by the industry. What is the biggest problem? It’s labor shortages. Getting work done requires being able to find and hire skilled workers for the trades. That is a global metric, not an industry-specific metric one. As of February 2018, experts predicted a short- age in 2020 of 31 million skilled workers. There are a couple of reasons why all trade industries, and not just the asphalt industry, have a problem finding qualified workers. One is the ongoing retirement of the boomer generation, which is causing the older portion of the workforce to age out in ever-increasing numbers. The other is a shortage of millennial workers, the generation that now forms the biggest component of working adults within the U.S. Only 6% of them are working in the construction industry. (Naturally, the part of the construction industry that is involved with asphalt has an even smaller percentage.) Why? Young people have been listen- ing to the same advice since they were ECONOMIC CONSTRAINTS AND OPPORTUNITIES AFFECTING THE ASPHALT INDUSTRY