Recruiters have to sell the industry.

On the day the U.S. population hit 300 million, the energy sector was complaining that it did not have enough skilled workers.

The issue was front and center at Global E&C Forum IX at Rice University, Houston. The energy sector has been caught between booming demand for new construction and a dwindling and aging supply of craft labor. “In my 35 years in the industry, I’ve never seen anything like it,” said C. Skip Alvarado, vice president, upstream energy and chemicals, for Fluor Corp., Dallas, and a speaker at the meeting.

Prompted by soaring demand and high oil prices, energy companies are starting construction on long-delayed projects. The market is straining to meet the demand for labor, materials, equipment and engineering and construction management expertise, Alvarado said. But the simultaneous start of so many U.S. projects—including many over $1 billion—and booming international markets has imposed a global strain on resources, he said. Much work abroad is occurring in remote areas, such as ultradeep water offshore, Russia and Africa.

Alvarado contrasted conditions in the 1970s with those of the present, noting that young engineers then signed on with an employer essentially for life, accepting slower advancement and more mobility as part of the package. Today, “our industry has an image issue,” partly because of the vast layoffs in the 1980s as the industry slumped and partly because of the environmental damage associated with oil industry activities, he said. Recruiters now find young engineers asking, “What can you do for me?” and approaching their careers with a desire to work to live, rather than live to work.

The frequent moves to distant sites that earlier generations accepted as part of the job in construction now are less acceptable to employees, Alvarado said. “We have to sell our wares,” he concluded. “I’m not sure our industry has fully accepted this.”

To meet the challenge, the construction industry must retain “grayhairs” for mentoring programs, recruit for the industry as a whole rather than just companies, target potential candidates early through school programs, persuade academia to see the industry as a customer and develop local talent for international projects, said Alvarado.

Keeping older employees on the job should be easier than it used to be because people aged 65 to 75 are in better shape than in the past, said Stephen J. Klineberg, professor of sociology at Rice University. He also noted that the ethnic makeup of Harris County, which includes Houston, foreshadows the whole country’s makeup in 2040. In 2005, the “Anglo” and Hispanic populations each accounted for about 38% of the 3.65 million total. African-Americans made up 18% and Asians about 6%, according to the U.S. Census Bureau. Of these, the older people are mostly Anglos and the younger are immigrants.

Klineberg said Houston is at a “hinge of history,” in which the community institutions created to serve the old Anglo majority will have to adapt to a more diverse population. For energy-sector recruiters, this means reaching “the best and brightest Hispanic engineers [and] companies will have to prove to them that this is a place where they will feel comfortable,” he said.