By and large, Hardhats are highly skeptical of claims that there are, or will be, shortages of construction workers.

"There isn't enough work to keep everyone employed now," is one argument that few can dispute. "Travelers can always be imported to fill the gaps," is another prevailing opinion that may well be true. And given the prediction of a severe lack of construction workers in the boom years of the late 1990s - a shortage which largely never happened - skepticism about the need for more construction workers seems warranted.

Not so fast, said Lou Glazer, president of Michigan Future Inc., who made a revealing presentation on demographics to delegates at the 46th annual convention of the Michigan Building Trades Council.

"In a sense, given this economy, this is a weird presentation, with the number of your members currently looking for work," Glazer told delegates. "But the odds are in the coming years, the normal state of affairs is that there will be a labor shortage in Michigan."

Earlier this year, Glazer released a study of employment and population trends in the 1990s along with University of Michigan researcher Donald Grimes of the U-M Institute of Labor and Industrial Relations. "Reports on employment don't usually start with population, but demographic trends are shaping employment in Michigan," said Grimes. "Michigan's population is both aging and growing slowly."

Glazer said over the next two decades, employers will be looking for workers in Michigan "over a broad spectrum of job categories." In the construction industry, he said, "there won't be enough people to do your work." The reasons:

Glazer warned that "we're leaving an era when there were more people than there were jobs available." U.S. industry, he said, is about to be turned on its head, from a scenario of relatively high unemployment to a surplus of jobs. Such a situation then brings us back to the aforementioned warnings about actively bringing more people into the construction industry. Is it a good idea?

Yes - good recruitment will be an absolute necessity for the survival of any company, Glazer said, because of all the fighting that will go on to attract workers. That led to a final observation, one that could - and with more study, perhaps should - affect how unions recruit new members.

He said a whopping 70 percent of young people make up their minds about their career choice in their 20s. Recruitment theories that it's best to get the attention of young workers in their high school or even junior high school years usually don't pan out. Glazer said his research indicates that only 10 percent of young people choose their eventual career choice in their high school years.

Glazer said people typically choose a career path after they leave high school or college and get a job. Using their job as a base, they acquire skills, a comfort zone, perhaps get a promotion, look around at other opportunities, talk to others, then pursue or settle on a job path.

He said the industries that will be the most successful in attracting new workers are those that have developed "a pipeline to new recruits," via connections through family, friends and business associates. The best example of this is the military, but he added that construction gives itself "an enormous advantage in that you don't leave your training to educational institutions, you do it yourself."

Successful organizations should start now to address recruiting challenges, he said.

"We're about to enter an historic turning point," Glazer said. "If organized labor is to survive you must deal with this issue."