Tampa Bay contractors expect to be busy over the next six months, but also shorthanded. According to the Associated Builders and Contractors' new confidence Index, 81 percent of contractors in Hillsborough and Pinellas counties anticipate an uptick in sales over the next six months, but just under 23 percent are confident they can find labor to complete projects.

"You can't take on more work if you don't have the labor force to get the work completed," Steve Cona III, president of ABC's Gulf Coast chapter, said.

Statewide, 88 percent of contractors are confident about the next six months of sales, while 84 percent share Tampa Bay contractors' concerns about workers.

Cona said the labor shortage exists because there are more people retiring than there are graduating from apprentice programs to take those vacated positions. Currently, he does not see an impact from immigration.

To help lessen this gap, ABC is hosting a career fair Thursday for 900 high school students to entice them into trade jobs. The Build Tampa Bay job fair will be at the Port of Tampa cruise terminal from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m.

"We're making our push to get as many of those high school kids (as possible) into the trade and learning skills," Cona said.

Florida has added 34,700 construction jobs since February of last year according to job from the Florida Department of Economic Opportunity, the most of any state for that period.

Contact Malena Carollo at mcarollo@tampabay.com. Follow @malenacarollo.