Construction industry facing skilled labor shortage

Tuesday, 05 June 2007

Page 2 of 2 Locally, industry professionals such as Emory Infinger, president of North Charleston-based Emory J. Infinger & Associates Construction Co., speaks to high school students to promote employment in the construction industry. Yet students are not the only ones who need convincing that the construction industry provides viable career options. Parents of schoolchildren need convincing too, perhaps more so than their children, Infinger said. Many parents are still intent on their children going to college, even if their children are more suited for vocational careers. School administrators have shared those sentiments, pushing students more toward college regardless of whether the students are interested in or prepared for higher education, said Renee Chewning, leadership development and program integration director for Sea Islands Youth Build, a Johns Island-based program offering academic and vocational training for high school dropouts. The public schools’ emphasis on making all students college-bound has contributed to the state’s more than 40% high school dropout rate, Chewning and Infinger said. How strongly South Carolina public schools re-embrace vocational training will be seen in 2011, by which time the state’s school districts must fully implement the S.C. Education and Economic Development Act. A key purpose of the act is to provide students not interested in attending college with the skills necessary to pursue careers in trades. Mike Richardson, co-owner of Atlantic Electric LLC, an electrical contractor in North Charleston, believes the influx of illegal immigrants will do little to fill the industry’s skilled-labor void. Immigrants are gravitating toward masonry, painting, drywall installation and other jobs suitable for lesser-skilled workers. Also, illegal immigrants working in construction usually stay in the United States for only a couple of years before returning home. In Richardson’s business, it takes five years of training to become an electrician, he said. “I don’t see a long-term future in hiring short-term people,” Richardson said. However, illegal immigrants do construction jobs Americans avoid and therefore are valuable to the industry, particularly to small specialty contractors, Mashburn said. He pointed to a Columbia-based cement-pouring contractor, 80% of whose employees are Hispanic immigrants. Yet it is skilled, highly trained personnel the industry will need. In the past, high schools with comprehensive trade programs fulfilled that need, Maher said. “Schools dropped vocational training programs about 20 years ago, and we’re seeing the impact,” he said. << Start < Prev 1 2 Next > End >>