On Feb. 12, 2020, Roy Rock LLC sent a concrete pump truck to Elizabeth, N.J., where a developer was constructing an apartment building. It had rained heavily much of the week.
With a tight labor market and construction still booming in many regions of the country, one category of worker that has felt stretched thin has been equipment operators.
In 2017, Clark Construction, based in Bethesda, Md., became the first general contractor to require personal protection headgear with a higher safety standard than traditional hardhats on all of its projects.
The construction equipment sector is still working through supply chain issues that bedeviled it in 2021, while an active construction market ikeeps machines in use longer and constrains the flow of used iron into the normal secondary channels.