Economic Impact of a Shortage of Plumbers Should Concern Everyone

The result is that 30 years later there is a dangerous shortage of people who are in the plumbing trade. Bigley said the alarm bells went off three years ago when the National Association of Home Builders reported there was a 55% shortfall in the number of plumbers available for work.

Bigley said people need to wake up. "I am not sure people really understand that plumbing is not just fixing a leaking pipe or replacing a rusting one or unclogging roots in a line for a toilet," he said.

"The economic impact of the shortage problem is not just a residential issue. It also impacts the construction of new offices, hospitals, manufacturing plants, grocery stores, sort of all of the things that are part of everyone's everyday life that you don't think about," he said.

According to an analysis sponsored by bathroom fittings maker Lixil, the deficit of licensed plumbers who install bathroom fixtures and piping systems drained $33 billion from the economy in 2022. The report also noted that the industry will be short plumbers by a whopping 550,000 tradesmen within three years.

Bigley sees this in real time. To combat it, he uses both traditional methods such as job fairs and talking to the students at their schools and more modern approaches such as creatively attracting young people online. Indeed, Local 27's Facebook page is a master class in reaching young people where they are.

"The hope is with the rising cost of college we are encouraging young people through our messaging to take a look at our apprenticeship program," he said. "The cost is minimal and they learn how to develop the hands-on skills to set people up for a good life."

"Here in Pittsburgh, we are coming off of our busiest year -- heck, busiest five years in our history, and in that same time period, I've had more people retire than we have brought in through our apprenticeship program," he explained.

Bigley said their bread-and-butter here at their facility located just off of I-376 outside of Pittsburgh is commercial work, but "We also do service and industrial from apartment buildings to hospitals to, well, everything you use every day."

"A licensed plumber is the one trade that stands between you and safe drinking water; the work we do cuts down on disease," he said. "That is a heck of an impact you can have on people's lives. ... Our challenge is not so much people understanding how important we are in their daily lives. Anyone who ever had water in their basement or a clogged toilet will tell you immediately that they get that. My industry's challenge is getting across to both educators and young people in a meaningful way to tell them just how rewarding a career as a plumber can be."

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Salena Zito is a CNN political analyst, and a staff reporter and columnist for the Washington Examiner. She reaches the Everyman and Everywoman through shoe-leather journalism, traveling from Main Street to the beltway and all places in between. To find out more about Salena and read her past columns, please visit the Creators Syndicate webpage at www.creators.com.

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