A Roofing Contractor editorial study shows that commercial roofing’s immediate future looks good, but issues with labor are preventing the future from looking great.
It wasn’t all that long ago when the biggest crisis facing the roofing industry was not enough business. While that still may hold true for some, business is getting better for most companies. And, according to Roofing Contractor’s Commercial Roofing Trends study, the outlook going forward is positive. Sales are up, allowing companies to start looking at new tools to gain business or run more efficiently. However, as the rule of economics goes, if there’s an increase in demand but the supply isn’t there, then costs go up. Such is the case with labor. But this isn’t 2009 when so much uncertainty clouded the landscape.
The purpose of this editorial study was to take an exclusive look at the commercial side of roofing, even though 13 percent of respondents did have some involvement with the residential market. By far, most of the respondents said that their companies generated the bulk of their revenue through replacement roofs (50 percent), followed by new roofs (21 percent) and repair (17 percent). Allocating work in this manner has been working.