According to Giles Lamberston in a recent post for Construction Equipment Guide, the recent AGC study on workforce studies points to both a short and long term need for more skilled workers.
Lamberston makes a couple of great points that I think are important. He writes, “The larger truth is that until blue-collar labor is accorded the same respect given software work and other white-collar employment, young people will opt for college degrees of increasingly shrinking career value. There was a time when skilled construction trades men and women were honored for their labor. Now such positions are considered a last resort or an interim job. Consequently, many of the ‘best and brightest’ drift into careers and professions that are trendier but, ultimately, less personally rewarding.
“It is a national mindset. Until a U.S. president or some other high-profile persona pushes construction work as a field of opportunity and professional satisfaction, you can look for there to be more construction jobs open than there are qualified people to fill them.”
He has hit on a couple of core truths that many politicians and industry “spokesfolks” have neither accepted nor addressed yet.
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