It is not a job for everyone. People who don’t want to get dirty or sweaty need not apply, those in the construction industry say.

Robert Drake, 55, of Morgantown, has been self-employed in construction for the past 22 years.

“My father was a bricklayer. I like to work out in the field,” he said Wednesday as a break in the recent scorching temperatures, combined with a clear, blue sky, made his outdoor working conditions laying brick more tolerable.

“I love doing it. I love the outdoors. Can’t stand a factory – I tried that,” Drake said at a house construction site off Three Springs Road.

Drake said construction isn’t for everyone.

“Went through 12 people last year,” he said of his crew. “It is getting harder and harder to find good, quality help. People want to work two or three days and then take off.”

Construction workers are in short supply, a circumstance expected to last a while. Associated Builders and Contractors Inc. predicts a need for 1.1 million construction workers during the next decade.

The number of workers in the construction industry declined between 2007 and 2011, said Bernard Markstein, a senior business economist in the Washington, D.C., area who runs Markstein Advisors. When the nation’s economy tanked, people got out of the field, he said, and even with a slight uptick in the economy in recently years those same workers are hesitant to get back into the construction field.

Joshua Peterson, 33, of Morgantown, said working for Drake cutting brick to size and making the mud to hold the bricks in place can be difficult.

“This is about the only thing I know,” he said while taking a break from the motorized saw. “I started when I was 15. It is a dying breed of people it takes to do this.”

The reasons for the worker decline between 2007 and 2011 are numerous, Markstein said.

“People choose to get work in another industry, they retire, they die or they get a job in another state and don’t show up in the statistics,” Markstein said.

Jeff Leieritz, senior manager of media relations for Associated Builders & Contractors, said the ABC hears from its members that there is a shortage of skilled labor. Despite $1 billion annually spent for training programs, the timeline to reach proficiency in the construction field can last up to six years.

“In talking regularly to ABC’s contractor members in the Bowling Green area, they were experiencing a full upswing in construction activity through much of 2015 and continuing through 2016,” said J.R. Gaylor, president and chief executive officer of Associated Builders & Contractors’ Indiana/Kentucky chapter.

“Now, general reports of what is immediately ahead show a backlog that seems strong over the next six to eight months,” Gaylor said. “This robust activity has brought to light a shortage of skilled construction workers for the industry, which in fact is limiting some companies from expanding their capacity to meet the marketplace demands. ABC is expanding various recruitment and training programs to lend support to the contractors challenge of workforce shortages.”

ABC recently reported that U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics data showed that construction unemployment rates in May improved in 46 states compared to May a year ago. The industry employed 213,000 more people this May.

As the pipeline for construction is built once again, Leieritz said there is an aging, skilled workforce available with fewer young people choosing to join the construction workforce.

“You don’t enter the industry by just walking off the street,” Leieritz said.

Markstein said when the apprenticeship training programs declined in number or were actually shelved during the economic downturn, the industry as a whole lost about five years of training.

“It could improve as we begin to see wages increase,” Markstein said.

Tim Thomas of Industrial Electrical Contractors in Bowling Green, an ABC member, said youths today aren’t drawn to the construction field. He said to find experienced, qualified workers “you have to scratch, hunt, peck and work overtime.”

“People don’t want to work,” he said, and they choose instead to draw unemployment checks.

“That’s the mentality. Until you change people, their mindset is made up,” Thomas said. “No one wants to get dirty and sweaty.”

Thomas said his shop can take on an apprentice and it takes four to six years to get the employee up to speed. “You lose money those four to six years,” he said.

Thomas serves on an advisory committee for the Kentucky Community and Technical College System, where officials continue to look at strategies to attract young people to an industry where they can start making $30,000 annually, with a future wage potential of between $40,000 and $60,000 a year, plus retirement benefits.

Peterson advised young people to stay in school and get a good education. Drake said young people have to realize that they have to start at the bottom on a job site, doing the hard labor, then work their way up.

“It will take a while to fill the pipeline,” Markstein said.

— Follow business reporter Charles A. Mason on Twitter @BGDNbusiness or visit bgdailynews.com.