Economy’s upturn can have downside for construction industry

Posted March 13, 2013

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After studying the economic history of the construction industry over the past four decades, Thomas Schleifer has a cautionary message for construction businesses as the country’s economic recovery begins to take root.

Schleifer is a management consultant as well as a lecturer and research professor in the Del E. Web School of Construction Programs in the School of Sustainable Engineering and the Built Environment, one of Arizona State University’s Ira A. Fulton Schools of Engineering.

Writing in a recent issue of a leading construction and engineering industry magazine, he warns businesses to be especially wary of engaging in the typical “feeding frenzy” that emerges in economic recovery periods as contractors jump at any and all new projects that spring up.

Instead of stabilizing their businesses, such an impetuous move may in fact be “magnifying risk in an already risky business,” Schleifer says.

Contractors must deal sensibly with the inevitably cyclical construction marketplace, he writes, and develop plans to not only stay afloat during recessions but also to survive recoveries.

Read the article in Engineering News-Record