In a swath of Arizona desert that will soon be home to a multibillion-dollar semiconductor plant, Justin Azbill stood before thousands of construction workers and told the story of the day he almost took his life.
Pressure had been building on Azbill for months at his job as safety director for a large Boston construction firm during the height of the pandemic. Sleep-deprived and overwhelmed, Azbill said he packed a lethal means to harm himself in his lunch sack.
But as he was preparing to leave for work that morning, his daughter asked him to stay home with her that day. He did and the day provided a moment of clarity for Azbill, who then sought out help from a friend.
Azbill, who got his start in construction as an ironworker, has been traveling to construction sites across the country sharing his story as he and others in the industry race to address what they say is an epidemic of suicide among their colleagues — many of whom are under increasing strain amid a nationwide construction boom and a shortage of workers.
“In the construction industry, we’ve generationally been taught that if you talk to someone about a weakness or you’re struggling then you’re weak and you won’t get hired,” said Azbill. “One of the reasons I talk about it so freely is so people know that it’s normal and it’s OK.”
Justin Azbill tells the story of the day he almost took his life. (Courtesy Justin Azbill)
The construction industry has one of the highest suicide rates among professions — with the rate among male construction workers 75% higher than men in the general population, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. An estimated 6,000 construction workers by suicide in 2022, an increase from 2021, according to the most recent data available. That compares to around 1,000 who died from a construction work-related injury.
“When you’re more likely to be killed by your own hands than to get killed in a jobsite accident, that’s a crisis in our industry,” said Brian Turmail, vice president of public affairs and workforce for the Associated General Contractors of America. “We know pretty much what needs to happen to protect people physically. We’re figuring out how to protect people mentally.”
While construction wages are up and jobs are plentiful, those in the industry fear that the pressures on their workers’ mental health are only getting worse. A recent surge in construction projects, spurred by billions of federal dollars for infrastructure, clean energy and semiconductor projects have put increasing strain on an already stretched workforce.
As a result, workers are putting in more than 10-hour days in harsh weather conditions, facing high-pressure deadlines and having to spend months away from home living in hotels, temporary workforce housing or their vehicles. There is also the risk of workplace injuries and a higher rate of opioid misuse along with the general financial instability of hourly work.
“There’s a lot that goes into how stressful it is, not just physically, but mentally and psychologically,” said Josh Vitale, a superintendent for Hoffman Construction, the general contractor overseeing the Intel Arizona project where Azbill recently spoke. “I think progress is fantastic, but we have to realize that we are legitimately wringing the life out of people.”
Josh Vitale and Justin Azbill in front of a construction site (Courtesy Justin Azbill)
One of the biggest building booms is being driven by the semiconductor industry. Companies are planning to spend $450 billion on 80 new semiconductor manufacturing projects in 25 states as part of a nationwide push led by the Biden administration to increase U.S. manufacturing of high-tech chips that go into everything from cars to military equipment, according to the Semiconductor Industry Association.
In Arizona, workers building the $20 billion Intel facility typically work two 60-hour weeks followed by a 50-hour week for months at a time in the hot Arizona weather with no paid vacation time, said Vitale. Because of a shortage of local workers, many are coming in from out of state, leaving behind friends and family and living for months or years in hotels or temporary housing.
For Azbill, a number of factors came together in a matter of months that pushed him to a place where he was close to ending his own life.
Azbill had spent decades working his way up the ranks of the construction industry, and when the pandemic hit, he was thrust into the role of Covid czar, working in an emotionally challenging and negative environment as his company tried to navigate the pandemic on its worksites, he said.
“I was working 19-hour days, and then I couldn’t sleep at night. Try that for six months and see where someone would be,” he said. “You start seeing everything negatively, there is this darkness. I was crying myself to sleep.”
At home, his relationship with his wife and daughter was fraying because for months he had barely been around, but he worried that if he cut back his hours at work he would let his family down financially, he said.
“At the time, I didn’t think that my wife or my daughter really cared for me because for six months I was angry all the time, they were cautious being around me, they didn’t want to cause more problems for me,” Azbill said.
After about six months, Azbill said he hit a breaking point. There was a Covid outbreak on a jobsite after some workers weren’t following safety protocols. The incident angered him in a way he’d never experienced. He said he blacked out and started having thoughts of suicide. He knew something was wrong so he went home to try to get some sleep.
He woke up at 2:30 a.m. the next morning and decided he was going to take his own life. He wrote three goodbye letters: one to his mother, one to his wife and one to his daughter.
“Before I left, I said, ‘Goodbye. I’m going to work, I love you guys,’” he said.
Then, his 8-year-old daughter, who was doing remote school, came running out of her room.
“She says, ‘Papa, Papa,’ and anytime she calls me Papa she steals my heart. It’s also her way of saying she loves me,” Azbill said. “I think she knew I was struggling bad, and I was her best friend. She said, ‘Papa, I love you, spend time with me, I don’t like my teacher and I don’t like school, can you spend time with me today?’ And so I did.”
Azbill stayed home from work that day and watched his daughter.
In the afternoon, he got on a weekly Zoom call with dozens of other safety professionals in the industry. Near the end of the call, one of the participants began crying, talking about losing one of his best friends to Covid and shared how he was struggling with the loss.
“I call that my clarity moment. It completely changed my mindset,” he said. “I realized I can’t do that. I’m not going to do what I was thinking.”
After the Zoom meeting, Azbill called a friend and shared that he was struggling. His friend told him how important he was to those in his life and that people are grateful for all he does. That phone call, he said, helped save his life.
At the Intel project, the site’s general contractor, Hoffman Construction, has tried to tackle the risk of suicide in a number of ways across its worksites after the company lost two of its supervisors to suicide over the past several years, said Vitale. Intel doesn’t employ any of the construction workers on the site or have direct involvement in the construction process.
Workers wait at Intel’s Ocotillo Campus in Chandler, Ariz., to greet President Joe Biden. (Alexandra Buxbaum / Sipa USA via AP Images )
The company has created community center-style spaces on its worksites where workers can have some personal space, attend a substance misuse meeting or talk with a peer who can help connect them to mental health resources. It also started including discussions about mental health in its regular staff meetings.
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Pressure had been building on Azbill for months at his job as safety director for a large Boston construction firm during the height of the pandemic. Sleep-deprived and overwhelmed, Azbill said he packed a lethal means to harm himself in his lunch sack.
But as he was preparing to leave for work that morning, his daughter asked him to stay home with her that day. He did and the day provided a moment of clarity for Azbill, who then sought out help from a friend.
Azbill, who got his start in construction as an ironworker, has been traveling to construction sites across the country sharing his story as he and others in the industry race to address what they say is an epidemic of suicide among their colleagues — many of whom are under increasing strain amid a nationwide construction boom and a shortage of workers.
“In the construction industry, we’ve generationally been taught that if you talk to someone about a weakness or you’re struggling then you’re weak and you won’t get hired,” said Azbill. “One of the reasons I talk about it so freely is so people know that it’s normal and it’s OK.”
Justin Azbill tells the story of the day he almost took his life. (Courtesy Justin Azbill)
The construction industry has one of the highest suicide rates among professions — with the rate among male construction workers 75% higher than men in the general population, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. An estimated 6,000 construction workers by suicide in 2022, an increase from 2021, according to the most recent data available. That compares to around 1,000 who died from a construction work-related injury.
“When you’re more likely to be killed by your own hands than to get killed in a jobsite accident, that’s a crisis in our industry,” said Brian Turmail, vice president of public affairs and workforce for the Associated General Contractors of America. “We know pretty much what needs to happen to protect people physically. We’re figuring out how to protect people mentally.”
While construction wages are up and jobs are plentiful, those in the industry fear that the pressures on their workers’ mental health are only getting worse. A recent surge in construction projects, spurred by billions of federal dollars for infrastructure, clean energy and semiconductor projects have put increasing strain on an already stretched workforce.
As a result, workers are putting in more than 10-hour days in harsh weather conditions, facing high-pressure deadlines and having to spend months away from home living in hotels, temporary workforce housing or their vehicles. There is also the risk of workplace injuries and a higher rate of opioid misuse along with the general financial instability of hourly work.
“There’s a lot that goes into how stressful it is, not just physically, but mentally and psychologically,” said Josh Vitale, a superintendent for Hoffman Construction, the general contractor overseeing the Intel Arizona project where Azbill recently spoke. “I think progress is fantastic, but we have to realize that we are legitimately wringing the life out of people.”
Josh Vitale and Justin Azbill in front of a construction site (Courtesy Justin Azbill)
One of the biggest building booms is being driven by the semiconductor industry. Companies are planning to spend $450 billion on 80 new semiconductor manufacturing projects in 25 states as part of a nationwide push led by the Biden administration to increase U.S. manufacturing of high-tech chips that go into everything from cars to military equipment, according to the Semiconductor Industry Association.
In Arizona, workers building the $20 billion Intel facility typically work two 60-hour weeks followed by a 50-hour week for months at a time in the hot Arizona weather with no paid vacation time, said Vitale. Because of a shortage of local workers, many are coming in from out of state, leaving behind friends and family and living for months or years in hotels or temporary housing.
For Azbill, a number of factors came together in a matter of months that pushed him to a place where he was close to ending his own life.
Azbill had spent decades working his way up the ranks of the construction industry, and when the pandemic hit, he was thrust into the role of Covid czar, working in an emotionally challenging and negative environment as his company tried to navigate the pandemic on its worksites, he said.
“I was working 19-hour days, and then I couldn’t sleep at night. Try that for six months and see where someone would be,” he said. “You start seeing everything negatively, there is this darkness. I was crying myself to sleep.”
At home, his relationship with his wife and daughter was fraying because for months he had barely been around, but he worried that if he cut back his hours at work he would let his family down financially, he said.
“At the time, I didn’t think that my wife or my daughter really cared for me because for six months I was angry all the time, they were cautious being around me, they didn’t want to cause more problems for me,” Azbill said.
After about six months, Azbill said he hit a breaking point. There was a Covid outbreak on a jobsite after some workers weren’t following safety protocols. The incident angered him in a way he’d never experienced. He said he blacked out and started having thoughts of suicide. He knew something was wrong so he went home to try to get some sleep.
He woke up at 2:30 a.m. the next morning and decided he was going to take his own life. He wrote three goodbye letters: one to his mother, one to his wife and one to his daughter.
“Before I left, I said, ‘Goodbye. I’m going to work, I love you guys,’” he said.
Then, his 8-year-old daughter, who was doing remote school, came running out of her room.
“She says, ‘Papa, Papa,’ and anytime she calls me Papa she steals my heart. It’s also her way of saying she loves me,” Azbill said. “I think she knew I was struggling bad, and I was her best friend. She said, ‘Papa, I love you, spend time with me, I don’t like my teacher and I don’t like school, can you spend time with me today?’ And so I did.”
Azbill stayed home from work that day and watched his daughter.
In the afternoon, he got on a weekly Zoom call with dozens of other safety professionals in the industry. Near the end of the call, one of the participants began crying, talking about losing one of his best friends to Covid and shared how he was struggling with the loss.
“I call that my clarity moment. It completely changed my mindset,” he said. “I realized I can’t do that. I’m not going to do what I was thinking.”
After the Zoom meeting, Azbill called a friend and shared that he was struggling. His friend told him how important he was to those in his life and that people are grateful for all he does. That phone call, he said, helped save his life.
At the Intel project, the site’s general contractor, Hoffman Construction, has tried to tackle the risk of suicide in a number of ways across its worksites after the company lost two of its supervisors to suicide over the past several years, said Vitale. Intel doesn’t employ any of the construction workers on the site or have direct involvement in the construction process.
Workers wait at Intel’s Ocotillo Campus in Chandler, Ariz., to greet President Joe Biden. (Alexandra Buxbaum / Sipa USA via AP Images )
The company has created community center-style spaces on its worksites where workers can have some personal space, attend a substance misuse meeting or talk with a peer who can help connect them to mental health resources. It also started including discussions about mental health in its regular staff meetings.
Construction workers are dying by suicide at an alarming rate
The construction industry has one of the highest suicide rates among professions with an estimated 6,000 construction workers dying as a result of suicide in 2022.
