PHOENIX (By Yvette Armendariz, Arizona
Republic) October 30, 2005 Educators in Arizona, Florida and Mexico
are developing a first-of-its-kind training program to fill a growing
lack of skilled construction workers across the United States.
The goal is to create certification for electricians, plumbers,
carpenters and others from Mexico who are in high demand from Arizona to
Louisiana to Virginia.
"The hope is you have common skills on either side of the border," said
Lupe Carbajal, chief executive officer of constructNet International
Inc. "It's almost a foundation for a guest-worker program."
Carbajal's company is coordinating the collaboration among Arizona State
University, Monterrey Technological Institute of Advanced Studies in
Mexico and the National Center for Construction Education and Research
in Gainesville, Fla.
The program is in the early negotiation stages, he said. The training
would include an online component in Spanish and the teaching of
"construction English." Carbajal said that of the approximately 6
million construction workers in the United States, about 2 million are
Spanish-dominant speakers.
The training is considered crucial because the industry is expected to
add 1 million jobs nationwide by 2012. Arizona is projected to create
more than 61,400 jobs by 2013. Those figures don't include workers who
leave the industry or retire. That could represent another 250,000
openings per year.
"We need to replenish those people," said Marty Alvarez, president of
Chandler-based general contractor Sun Eagle Corp. "The foresight to look
at the Mexican market is ideal . . . it's modern global thinking."
Immigrant labor from Mexico and South America is critical. The Arizona
construction industry employs about 215,000 people. A significant but
unknown number of them are undocumented. Many workers don't speak
English or lack skills for fast-growing carpentry, electrical and
plumbing jobs.
Mexico has training programs for workers, Carbajal said, but some
standards are different in the United States so a common training
program is needed. Also, not all Mexican workers have training.
In the United States, schools increasingly are cutting shop programs and
parents rarely encourage construction careers.
Ricardo Carlo, executive director of the Associated Minority Contractors
of America chapter in Phoenix, said the industry has been promoting
construction careers that pay well over $20 an hour if a worker has
specialized skills.
"But there is not much interest from younger kids," he said. "So we're
going to have to utilize workers from other countries just to keep up
with demand."
The shortage results in delays in the construction of housing, roads and
commercial buildings, said J. Doug Pruitt, chairman and chief executive
officer of Sundt Construction, a national contractor based in Tempe.
"But the sense of urgency has not reached a peak to get the attention of
educators," Pruitt said.
Pruitt introduced the initiative to contractors attending the Phoenix
chapter of the minority contractors annual dinner Friday night.
Dan Villa Jr., president of Glendale-based Villa Inc., said filling one
job can sometimes take four months, and generally he gets only one or
two viable candidates. Five years ago, he could fill a job within 30
days and have four or five good candidates.
"The labor void just keeps getting larger and larger," he said.
In some cases, companies will bid up wages to pull workers from
competitors. Sometimes they lose revenues because they lack the workers
to take on new jobs.
"I've turned down quite a bit of work," Pruitt said. "I don't like
turning down work, but good contractors don't want to go out and not
perform."
