If the current dismal work prospects in the U.S. come to fruition, it would be "simply devastating" to the U.S. construction industry, with job layoffs amounting to nearly one-third of U.S. building trades workers.

So said Stephen Sandherr, CEO of the Associated General Contractors of America at a Jan. 8 news conference. He said a nationwide survey of 33,000 construction contractors "paint a picture for 2009 that makes 2008 look good by comparison."

He said 30 percent of the nation's construction workforce "could be dismissed this year" if current trends don't change. Sandherr said there were about 7.8 million workers in the U.S. construction industry in 2000, and today that number has dropped by 10 percent, or 780,000 workers. Ninety-two percent of building contractors and 93 percent of road builders are expecting or are experiencing declining activity, he added.

The saving grace, said Sandherr and a host of AGC contractors from around the country, would be the economic stimulus program put forth by the incoming Obama Administration, including investment in roads, schools public buildings and green construction.

The same day as the news conference, President-elect Obama laid out his financial stimulus plan. It didn't have exact numbers or layout specific uses for the money, but there's speculation that it could involve spending in the neighborhood of $800 billion, and up to $1 trillion.

Obama warned of unemployment rates exceeding 10 percent, and ominously, a "generation" of lost earnings if Congress doesn't approve his stimulus plan shortly after he takes office. He said failure to pass the plan would make "a bad situation …dramatically worse."

Called the "American Recovery and Reinvestment Plan," Obama said the blueprint "won't just throw money at our problems - we'll invest in what works. The true test of policies we'll pursue won't be whether they're Democratic or Republican ideas, but whether they create jobs, grow our economy, and put the American Dream within reach of the American people."

Democrats and Republicans expressed reservations about Obama's plan - in the Dems' case, it was not necessarily about spending all that money, but using a portion of it for tax breaks as a means to stimulate economic activity.

Without the passage of the stimulus, "construction would continue to be among the hardest hit industries," Sandherr said. But "if Congress commits to the money," he added, construction employment prospects "would dramatically improve. We are doing everything imaginable to ensure that our construction employment and business forecast does not become a reality."

When asked if one state or region has been hit harder than another, Ken Simonson, chief economist for the AGC, said "from what I've been seeing, there downturns in almost every state. There are just a handful of states (including areas of Texas and Oklahoma) that have more people on hand for work today than a year ago."

But the work outlook in those states is expected to worsen soon too, he said.

Naysayers who claim that infrastructure makes a poor stimulus because it takes a while for projects to start are off-base, the AGC leaders said, with billions of dollars in projects that are "shovel ready."

Brian Burgett, the CEO of an Ohio construction firm, at the news conference cited the (non)construction of a twin 1,000-foot lock in Sault Ste. Marie that has been on the drawing boards for years. The lock, expected to cost $300 million, would work as a backup in case of a malfunction of the Poe Lock, the only working 1,000-foot lock in place at the Soo. "The design has been approved," Burgett said. "There is no…money to fund it. There is just an immense amount work out there that's ready to go."