Construction worker shortages have only gotten worse in Colorado this year, according to a new survey from the Associated General Contractors, an industry trade group.

Nearly nine in 10 contractors surveyed in Colorado report having a hard time filling positions for skilled craft workers, while nearly seven in 10 said the struggle also extended to salaried workers, according to the AGC’s 2019 Workforce Survey, released on Tuesday.

Nationally, eight in 10 firms said they were having a hard time filling craft positions, and 57 percent said that applied to salaried positions.

“Workforce shortages remain one of the single most significant threats to the construction industry,” said Stephen Sandherr, AGC’s chief executive officer, on a conference call Tuesday.

Labor shortages have plagued Colorado’s construction sector for much of the decade, and despite a concerted effort, have remained hard to overcome.

Even though contractors account for the tight labor market when they bid a job, just over half of the Colorado firms surveyed still said projects were taking longer to complete than anticipated, and nearly half said costs have come in higher than expected.

Project managers, engineers, architects and estimators were the salaried positions that contractors said, by the widest margins, had become more difficult to fill this year compared to last.

Skilled craftsmen are even tougher to locate, especially millwrights, pipelayers, heavy equipment operators, truck drivers, concrete workers, carpenters and bricklayers.

The crafts with a little more slack, but not much more, included plumbers, traffic control workers, mechanics, drywall installers, roofers and painters.

Both nationally and in Colorado, contractors bemoaned the quality of new entrants coming into the industry. Just over half of Colorado firms surveyed described the labor pipeline as “poor” and another 37 percent would only give it a “fair” rating.

Aside from not having adequate training, many applicants can’t pass a basic drug test in a field where impairment can be a life-or-death issue.

“Contractors tell us anywhere from 25 percent to 40 percent of job applicants have to be removed from the list of possible hires because they fail the drug test,” said Sandherr.

Only 27 percent of contractors in Colorado described the ability of potential hires to pass a drug test as good, while 39 percent said it was fair and 34 percent described it poor.

Although contractors appear to be taking a more tolerant approach to marijuana, opiate abuse continues to plague the industry.

One study in Massachusetts found that construction workers, who represented one in 20 workers, accounted for one in six opiate overdoses, said AGC spokesman Brian Turmail.

So how are firms coping? Six in 10 Colorado firms surveyed said they had started or increased in-house training, while 44 percent had loosened hiring standards.

Nearly eight in 10 firms said they had increased base pay rates the past year for craft workers and 74 percent had done so for salaried staff. But that has worsened another problem — poaching by competitors.

The survey included 1,935 contractors nationally, with 75 in Colorado.