Building the builder pool

Trades, higher education expand effor ts to fill construc tion jobs

BY KRIS BEVILL

At a recent multi-trade job fair in Fargo, North Dakota Building Construction Trades Council President Jason Ehlert ticked through some of the big construction projects planned for just the Fargo area that will demand thousands of construction workers to complete The under-construction Sanford Health Medical Center in Fargo, for example, is expected to need 800 workers at the peak of its construction. The proposed Northern Plains Nitrogen fertilizer plant near Grand Forks could require up to 2,000 workers Other large projects throughout the region, while in various stages of development, are numerous.

Construction workers are already in short supply and the pool is shrinking due to several factors First, the region’s low unemployment rates have left few available workers to fill demand for expanding businesses Secondly, as the nation’s economy improves, laborers who have spent the past few seasons working in our region are now able to find work in their home states Finally, like many industries, construction trades are facing a high number of retiring workers over the next few years and not enough fresh faces to fill the gap.

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Trades Team Up

That combination of factors is what prompted eight trade groups to team up earlier this year for the first time to jointly recruit as many new workers as possible. The campaign, called “Dakota Construction Careers,” (www DakotaConstructionCareers com) included job fairs in Williston, Minot, Dickinson, Bismarck, Jamestown, Fargo, Grand Forks and Devils Lake, N.D., as well as Pierre, Rapid City, Aberdeen and Sioux Falls, S D Participating trades include operating engineers, painters, iron workers, brick layers, cement masons, carpenters and laborers.

In early May, with stops remaining in only Aberdeen and Sioux Falls, Fargo had clearly been the most productive event to date About 150 people attended the Fargo job fair, held April 25 and 26, about three dozen more than any other North Dakota market In South Dakota, Rapid City drew about 60 attendees while fewer than 40 potential workers attended the Pierre event.

Despite the need for workers, Ehlert said labor shortages aren’t expected to disrupt construction progress in the region this year However, he notes that apprenticeships are a multi-year process and says it can take up to a decade to master a trade, so it is essential to attract new workers now in order to replace the highly skilled workers who are set to retire in coming years.

“We’re just trying to get out in front of it,” Ehlert says.

Residential Boost

Teresa Hall, department head of South Dakota State University’s construction and operations management program, says she also is witnessing growing demand for construction workers in all sectors and her department is ramping up efforts to recruit and fill that need

SDSU’s program was initially launched in the mid1990s with just one part-time faculty member It now boasts five faculty and about 170 students, but Hall says she needs more “I wish my enrollment numbers were a lot larger because I could place them all,” she says. “It’s just been a boom year for construction ”

The SDSU program prepares students to manage projects in three construction sectors: commercial, heavy (such as highway and utilities) and residential Commercial has been the primary focus of the program in the past, but a substantial grant awarded earlier this year by the National Housing Endowment will allow new emphasis to be placed on the residential tract

SDSU was one of just three institutions to receive the 2014 Homebuilding Education Leadership Program grant, which is a four-year grant worth nearly $100,000 Hall says the grant will be used to collaborate with home builders associations and community colleges in South Dakota, North Dakota, Minnesota and Nebraska to increase awareness among students about the career opportunities available in residential construction, largely due to the postrecession recovery.

“Everything kind of imploded in the early 2000s and a lot of homebuilders went out of business, so there is a huge hole in the 30-to-50 age group, ” she says.

Collaborative efforts will begin in the Brookings and Sioux Falls areas but will hopefully expand to include the Fargo-Moorhead and Rapid City regions as well, according to Hall. Program instructor Ken Bertolini is leading the program ’ s grant implementation

In addition to increasing awareness throughout the region, SDSU will also add a residential-specific senior course to its construction management curriculum. “Right now we only have one residential course, so this would take it to the next level where those students would perhaps pair up with a regional builder [and] there would be internships we would support,” Hall says

The program currently offers an internship not required for credit, but 90 percent of students participate, some for credit some not, Hall says. She asks companies that hire interns for credit to donate to the university’s foundation account In exchange, those companies become familiar to staff and students, allowing easier access to potential new hires Hall says that connection may become an increasingly important recruitment tool as the need for workers nationwide increases and prompts firms from outside the region to expand their employee searches. “We’re seeing new companies that haven’t come to campus before Companies that are in Iowa, the West Coast, around Denver,” she says. “They’re coming out to look at us because they’re also struggling to find the depth in their pools to fill their needs ”

Hall says only two of her program ’ s graduating students had not yet accepted a job offer by early April, the only reason being that they were holding out for job opportunities in specific cities, she says Most graduating students received multiple offers.

“By and large, the majority of our students end up in this central region and that’s very important in terms of the need that’s here,” she says “But we ’ re getting calls from companies looking for interns, looking for hires … it’s a great time to be a graduating construction management student ”

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Kris Bevill Editor, Prairie Business 701-306-8561, kbevill@prairiebizmag com