For road crews, stimulus promises more opportunity

CAMDEN, Ala. (AP) — Every weekday, a few dozen road construction workers gather at 6:30 a.m. on a dirt lot behind the offices of JRD Contracting.

These job seekers are finding fewer opportunities as the economic downturn grinds on, and the paychecks are smaller. But the tide may soon turn, if just a bit, in their favor.

For road construction crews across the country, the $787 billion stimulus package passed by Congress is nothing short of a godsend. A key part of President Barack Obama’s plan is to pump money into the nation’s infrastructure, including a jolt of cash for building and fixing highways.

“If he holds to that, it’s going to give all of the people in the road-building industry a chance to survive,” said Curtis Scarbrough, a foreman at JRD Contracting who is married and has two children.

Any extra work that flows to Scarbrough and his co-workers will mean a lot.

“I kind of live a week at a time,” said 21-year-old Caleb Cooper, an unskilled laborer for JRD, located in Camden. His boss, owner John Daily Sr., said Cooper is willing to do “most anything that comes along.”

The national unemployment rate is 7.6 percent, the highest since 1992, and it’s more than double that — 18.2 percent — in the construction industry overall. It’s hard to pin down the unemployment figure specific to the highway sector because so many workers are part-time, said Billy Norrell, executive director of the Alabama Road Builders Association.

Alabama is getting about $600 million in infrastructure funds from the stimulus. Norrell said that could translate into 17,500 jobs in road construction — a huge kick-start in a state that lost about 42,000 jobs last year.

The stimulus package could steer $27 billion into road-building projects nationally, plus about $12 billion for rail and mass-transit work and other infrastructure improvements. Most of the federal money would flow to contractors and crews through state transportation departments for projects considered “shovel ready.” State highway officials and contractors say it’s vital to be ready with shorter-term projects designed to get people working soon.