KANSAS CITY, Mo. -- The Associated General Contractors of America announced Tuesday an 11-percent dip in construction jobs in the Kansas City area, placing the metro near the bottom of the more than 350 cities the report tracked.
Kansas City companies lost 3,100 jobs in the construction sector between September 2016 and September 2017, according to the report.
"We still have strong demand for building construction, conversions into condos in the metro area, but the folks who repair roads and bridges, they are not repairing roads and bridges. They are sitting on the couch, waiting for the phone to ring," said Brian Trumail, spokesperson for the Associated General Contractors of America.
The report said Kansas City, Missouri ranked third-worst in the country in terms of construction job loss over the year. Per the release, more than two-thirds of the 358 cities in the report saw job growth in the sector, while 108 cities saw job loss or stagnation.
"What makes these job losses even more frustrating is the fact many of them could have been avoided," said the association's chief economist, Ken Simonson. "Many of the construction workers losing their jobs here in Kansas City most likely are road builders and infrastructure workers who should be rebuilding the Buck O'Neil Bridge instead of recollecting better days."
The Missouri Department of Transportation said the bridge is in need of major repairs -- to the tune of $150 million. AGC and the National Construction Association said this repair work could bring a lot of jobs to the area.
"One of the things we are urging Congress and President Trump to do is include infrastructure funding in the tax reform bill. It is a great opportunity and good vehicle [to] put more folks back to work here in Kansas City," said Trumail.
Kansas City leaders have been working to fund the Buck O'Neil Bridge repairs, but no specific proposal has made any headway and it could take years to see progress.
Nationally, spending on public works projects has dipped 5 percent over the past year, per the report. President Trump promised during his campaign to boost infrastructure spending with a $1 trillion spending plan, but the reality of the plan has remained "as elusive as ever," wrote Lauren Gardner of Politico in an August examination of the Trump administration's progress in the matter.
Without more funding for projects like the Buck O'Neil Bridge repair, Simonson said, the infrastructure in Kansas City "will continue to deteriorate and serve as an even greater drag on overall economic growth."
Last week, Trump's chief economic advisor floated the idea of increasing the national gas tax as a sort of "user fee" to fund a portion of the $1 trillion for road and bridge repairs.
Bloomberg reports, however, that the administration will not focus on the infrastructure plan head-on until it resolves another pressing item on Trump's agenda: the tax code overhaul.
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