Proponents of a new $311 million hotel claim that the project will create construction jobs. At a recent hearing before the City Council, developer Mike Burke said [begins at 46:35],
Let me talk a little bit about jobs. During the course of construction, which is about 27 months, there are about 1,300 jobs on the site.
Let's be clear about this: there won't be 1,300 jobs for 27 months. If someone were to ask Mr. Burke about this directly, he would probably walk it back immediately. Some jobs, such as heavy digging and foundation, may exist for a few months at the start. Those will transition to other, different jobs once the structure is being raised, and then finally there will be the finishing jobs once the hotel is ready for its final touches.
Moreover, even the time spent building the hotel won't result in new jobs. The hotel will be just be a new project for those workers who already have jobs. This is why the economic impact statistics for projects such as hotels, stadiums, and airports are so suspect. Proponents want to pretend that without the project in question, people wouldnt be working or traveling or staying in hotels. As my colleague Joe Miller wrote last month regarding a proposed riverfront stadium in St. Louis:
In fact, a paper from an economist at the University of Missouri studied the impact of the Edwards Jones Dome and the Kiel Center (now the Scottrade Center) in Saint Louis specifically. The author found:
By econometrically modeling construction employment during the 1970’s, 1980’s and 1990’s, it was found that there was no more nor no less construction employment within the St. Louis MSA during the time the Kiel Center and the Trans World Dome [Edward Jones Dome] were being constructed…
…instead of creating new construction jobs, jobs were shifted from projects that would otherwise have been undertaken, resulting in no net new job creation in the construction industry.
The author concluded:
These results, coupled with the more extensive analysis given in the article on construction employment, suggest that the net impact of stadium construction on construction employment and worker incomes is zero.
