Subcontractors spent $97B more than planned in 2022 | Dump Trucks Charlotte NC

Columbus Ohio Dump Truck Company Brief:

• U.S. subcontractors paid $97 billion more for materials and labor than expected in 2022 as profitability dropped, according to the third National Subcontractor Market Report survey by Billd, an Austin, Texas-based construction financial support firm.
• Although 61% of businesses surveyed saw revenue growth, 57% saw a drop in profitability, according to the report, which was released earlier this month. An overwhelming majority of subcontractors had to pay for labor and materials before getting paid themselves, with an average wait time of 74 days.
• Despite a quarter of them struggling with obstacles to secure financing, 72% of respondents are planning for growth this year, even in the face of unpredictable input costs, the report found.

Dump Trucks Columbus OH Insight:

“The financial burden of material and labor has always been difficult to quantify, the full extent a bit hazy. Knowing that subcontractors spent an extra $97 billion almost feels like putting a face to a name,” the report reads. “For some, it’s the missing cushion in their profit margins. It represents 97 billion instances of subcontractors financing the entire industry, all while navigating uncertainty in their payment cycles and subpar access to capital.”

Even with high inflation rates in 2022, labor and material spending accounted for a larger bump in expenses.

The decline in profitability was not unique to last year, the report said. 2022 was the second straight year that subcontractors reported a 57% decrease in profitability. A third of respondents attributed the drop to not increasing the price of bids at the same rate that costs of material or labor rose.

Labor costs jumped 15% on average, respondents said, and 87% had to pay out of pocket for labor before the sub got paid. Subcontractors have increasingly reported having to do so in each of Billd’s annual surveys.

That problem doesn’t seem to be getting any easier.

About half of respondents said the lack of skilled construction labor is the biggest risk to their business in 2023. Meanwhile, four in five respondents expected high or volatile business to impact their business in 2023, and two-thirds said those prices had an explicitly negative impact in 2022.

Even still, there’s a beacon of optimism. More than half of respondents said their business grew by 1% to 20% last year, and 58% are interested in pursuing larger projects this year.