Editor's note: Since this article was originally published, HoustonWorks has gone out of business. The new YouthBuild grant is operated by SER-Jobs for Progress.Last month YouthBuild Houston and HoustonWorks teamed up with Houston Habitat for Humanity to participate in the Hands on Housing Block...
This Week's Second Look
Charter Builders in Dallas, a Balfour Beatty company, is the general contractor on the largest “Net Zero” school in the nation, located in Irving, Texas near Dallas. Net Zero means that the facility, when completed in August, will generate sufficient power through its design and from its...
Last month the Associated General Contractors of America (AGC) released the results of a national survey of nearly 700 construction firms which revealed that 74% of construction firms are having trouble finding qualified workers. Companies are worried that there will simply not be enough...
Once when I was a kid, my parents had a truckload of dirt dumped onto our driveway. Their intent, and the eventual result, was that the dirt was to be used to level the low spots in our lawn. However, the immediate response to that glorious pile of dirt was that for a few weeks it...
The US Department of Labor’s Employment and Training Administration (ETA) and the Associated General Contractors of America (AGC) have announced the release of a new Commercial and Industrial Construction Competency Model that provides a set of guidelines that the construction industry can use to...
You might not know it but there is a shortage of skilled craftspeople in the industry. Today, with the 24% unemployment across the industry, probably not; however, look at these figures. In its updated projections, the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) indicates that there will be 1,300,...
Twenty-three states - make that thirty - have signed Wage Theft and/or Worker Misclassification bills into law as the focus in a number of legislatures has swung to the issue that is costing workers and taxing agencies billions of dollars in lost revenue.Two bills, The Fair Playing Field Act, SB...
As the new year gets underway, the filmmakers at The Rational Middle are digging into more aspects of immigration policy that have proven politically difficult if not impossible thus far. Case in point: DACA, or the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program made possible...
Last month, I talked with Quincy Gibbs, who had just completed a “boot camp,” a Ready for Industry (RFI) program, offered by ABC Houston’s Construction and Maintenance Education Foundation (CMEF). Gibbs learned about the opportunity at Dr. Kirk Lewis Career and Technical High School (CTHS),...
