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Featured Employer of the Month
CCC Group, Inc. is a nationally ranked general contractor with numerous specialty divisions that provide a broad range of construction services throughout the U.S. and in select foreign markets. With headquarters in San Antonio, Texas and eight regional offices, we successfully completed $340 Million worth of work in 2006.
CCC Group, Inc. is ranked #177 among the top 400 U.S. Contractors
(as ranked by Engineering News Record, May 2006)
Industry News
Skilled Labor Shortage To Be Costly
Manufacturing Engineering, Oct, 2005
The looming shortfall of skilled labor in the US will cost manufacturers an average $50 million from their bottom lines, according to results of a survey commissioned by Advanced Technology Services Inc. (ATS) and conducted by Nielsen. The survey showed a dire need for specially trained workforces across industry.
In the survey of 94 senior manufacturing executives, with titles of CEO, CIO, Vice President, and Plant Manager, ATS asked: Forecasts indicate that during the next five years, approximately 40% of your skilled labor force will retire. What do you anticipate the retirement will cost your company in these five years?
Approximately two-thirds said the crisis will cost them, on average, $50 million. Yet 46% percent of the respondents with more than $1 billion in revenue predict their costs at more than $100 million in the next five years.
Automotive manufacturers will be impacted the most, followed by ball and roller-bearing makers, metalvalve manufacturers, and engine and transmission manufacturers.
In another worker-related survey released by Accenture, a global management consulting, technology services, and outsourcing company, gave the worker's side of the story.
Of the 500 full-time US workers between 40 and 50 years of age questioned, nearly half (45%) of respondents' organizations do not have formal workforce planning processes and/or tools in place to capture their workplace knowledge.
- Some 26% said that their organizations will let them retire without any transfer of knowledge. Just 20% said they anticipate an intensive, monthslong process of knowledge transfer prior to their leaving.
- Fully 28% said they believe the knowledge-transfer process will last on or two weeks, and 16% think they will simply have an informal discussion with others in the organization prior to retirement.
- With more than 25% of the current working US population reaching retirement by 2010, companies must undertake workforce development and training initiatives to capture knowledge and minimize its loss. Additionally, they must support these initiatives with technology, which can help capture critical information and distribute it directly to employees' desktops.
- Of the respondents, 41% said their companies are doing only a fair or a poor job of providing the training they will need to meet the skills challenges they will face prior to retirement.
Copyright Society of Manufacturing Engineers Jul 2005
Provided by ProQuest Information and Learning Company. All rights Reserved
Featured Article
Training Day: We need skilled workers now more than ever. How will we get them?
Tools of the Trade, Sep-Oct, 2003 | By Mark Clement
Everybody's telling the same story: "I can get help. I just can't get good help."
This alarm has been ringing nationwide in the construction industry for more than a decade. Tom Holdsworth hears it loud and clear. As director of communications at SkillsUSA, a nonprofit educational organization that trains students entering the building trades, Holdsworth tracks what he calls a "decline in the numbers of students enrolling in construction trades programs." The Wall Street Journal's "Jobs Rated Almanac" rates construction worker, roofer, and ironworker among three of the top 10 "worst jobs" in America. The book's ratings are based on criteria like income, employment outlook, and stress. This only confirms what we've all witnessed for years: Smart, talented young people are choosing careers outside of construction.
The reasons new talent isn't racing into the trades in large numbers to replace an aging skilled workforce are sociological and systemic. Both currents run deep and pose great challenges for the industry and the quality of its future. To overcome these challenges, forward-thinking builders, remodelers, and labor unions are changing their business practices and deploying an old-school-meets-new-wave approach to attracting, hiring, and retaining the best young craftspeople. At the heart of this approach there are consistently two key elements fueling their futures: a well-defined company vision and new forms of apprenticeship.
Meeting the Challenge
There are three leaks in this roof and to fix them we first must find them. First, our culture takes a dim view of the idea of its children working in the trades. Second, high school guidance counselors urge every student who shows academic aptitude to follow a white-collar career path. Third, the industry is saddled with a negative image by both consumers and potential workers that is, in many instances, well-deserved.
Parents. There are several reasons why parents urge their kids onto the white-collar track. General contractor Steve Veroneau takes a historic view of it: We're a nation of immigrants, many of whom worked their guts out in manual labor jobs to give their kids better lives--and "better" meant "professional." "When I told my parents that I wanted to be a builder, they discouraged me," says Veroneau, owner of Transformations, LLC in Falls Church, Va. "They worked hard to get out of that kind of life."
While it's true that you can become a millionaire in this industry, that's often more the exception than the rule. Most trade workers make "a living," a sharp contrast to the salaries and perceived lifestyles garnered by many white-collar professionals. Since money is directly proportional to success for many parents, they envision Junior as a captain of industry, not someone who loses wages when it rains.
High School. The quality of many high schools is rated on the numbers of kids it sends to universities, so, despite a student's wishes to pursue a trade career, they may be encouraged otherwise. "What's left for the trades," says technology education teacher Joe Tenczar at Daniel Hand High School in Madison, Conn., "are the more hands-on, less cerebral kids." So, from the starting line, our society turns its best minds away from a huge and profitable industry.
Even programs in Area Vocational Schools (Vo-Tech schools) and Academies (schools that combine traditional learning with vocational education) are experiencing a downward trend, despite the industry's growing demand.
Industry Image. Builders nationwide say that over the last two decades the industry's image has eroded into a catch-as-catch-can workplace and describe a society that respected skilled trade workers more 20 years ago than it does today. Brian Lockett, editor for BNA, a construction industry analysis firm in Washington, D.C, sees this, too. "An unfortunate trend in construction has been an erosion of wages compared to those in manufacturing," he says. "Without the wage differential in construction to offset bad weather, dangerous working conditions, and lack of steady employment, young people entering the workforce (and their high school counselors) tend to consider construction employment a last resort. The industry constantly struggles to improve its image with little real success."
The way we build also has changed the industry's demand for highly skilled, well-compensated workers. Prior to World War II, it was common that when a carpenter built a house, he built it from batter boards to shingle caps, which obviously required proficiency in all aspects of the trade. It also required advanced woodworking skills, as many millwork packages--including window parts, trim profiles, and cabinets--often were made and assembled on site. Several factors changed this model, starting with an "industrial shift that began in the early 20th century," explains Howard Decker, chief curator of the National Building Museum in Washington, D.C. Between 1920 and 1940, California's population alone doubled, creating a massive housing demand. Then, after World War II, returning GIs and the success of Long Island, N.Y.'s Levittown--the first mass-produced suburban development in the United States--caused the demand for housing to spike, changing the pace and production of the nation's housing stock.
Production methods brought increased specialization and piecework, which has both merits and drawbacks. "Specialists often treat their businesses like a manufacturing process to get in and out of jobs rapidly. Add Spanish-speaking workers and it results in a communication breakdown: Good ideas and [expertise] get isolated inside a specialist's company. Likewise, problems (understanding codes) or questions (learning a new technology like post-tensioned slabs) get trapped, too," says Randy Luther, vice president of construction technology at Centex Homes in Dallas. And while Centex maintains high quality, their building processes could still be more efficient, he says.
Another side effect of intense specialization (or piecing) is that it requires workers to be fast but doesn't demand the older model's comprehensive know-how, contributing to the erosion of skilled workers who learn and grow on the job. "It's the natural evolution of the industry," says production framer Michael Davis, president of Framing Square in Albuquerque, N.M. "It's more task-training now; you don't have to make someone a carpenter, especially on big multifamily projects," he says.
"The trend in construction is increasing automation," says Ron Warde, an instructor at the United Brotherhood of Carpenters and Joiners of America (UBC) in Las Vegas. Locker sees this trend, too, and comments, "Pre-fab and modularization in the industry have reduced the need for skilled workers."
Pile on a business environment of skin-tight bids, above-the-speed-limit production schedules, often middling wages, and health insurance challenges, and it's clear why many parents hold the industry in low regard. It also points to a systemic problem inside the industry, too, making some contractors reevaluate how they attract and compensate skilled workers.
Industry Initiative
Building associations and trade unions alike see that the current crop of skilled workers is nearing retirement faster than it's being replaced. To combat this challenge, these organizations are reaching out to young people through intense public relations campaigns.
Associations. The National Association of Home Builders (NAHB) works with its affiliate training organization called the Home Builders' Institute (HBI) to recruit young people into home building careers. HBI's strategy centers Oil trade-relevant curricula it provides to both technical and standard high schools. The materials are intended to dovetail with students' core classes like English and math and provide home building-based problems to solve. This industry-specific context sometimes requires students to interact with contractors, thus exposing them to the field and its career potential. Also, HBI reaches out to at-risk kids through trade-training programs like Job Corps.
NAHB itself works on a significantly more macro and business-owner level. An ongoing initiative that could potentially help builders recruit higher-end talent is NAHB's vigorous support of the "Small Business Health Fairness Act of 2003," H.R. 660. This act would enable individual builders to purchase health care coverage through trade associations, allowing businesses to create larger purchasing groups whose "economies of scale" could lower insurance costs, according to NAHB. The bill passed the House in June, and is awaiting approval of a companion bill in the Senate.
The National Association of the Remodeling lndustry's (NARI) initiative, the Certified Remodeling Carpenter Program (CRC), is significantly more direct, painting a bright path between school and job. At work in several vocational high schools, NARI builds trade skill curricula with each school then connects students to area NARI members who provide the students with summer internships and/or job opportunities. In addition to the high school diploma and skills training the students receive in school, they generate job contacts, which NARI reports is a critical element for young people entering the workforce. After 18 months in the field, the graduates can test to become CRCs, a certification that can help jump-start careers with remodeling companies.
SkillsUSA. SkillsUSA takes a different approach to getting students excited about working in the industry. The educational organization teams up with contractors, manufacturers, vocational high schools, and community colleges to teach what Holdsworth calls "employability skills," including communication, goal-setting, ethics, and personal responsibility. SkillsUSA also conducts its high-profile SkillsUSA Championships, sort of the Super Bowl for career and technical students who want to test--and show off--their trade skills.
The group's annual TeamWorks competition is sponsored and judged by industry companies. Teams of four are challenged to build a functioning section of a building, calling on their skills in masonry, rough and finish carpentry, plumbing, and wiring, as well as plan reading and critical thinking. The contest is a way to recognize students, Holdsworth says, and to show them that the construction industry is a place to build a great career and life. TeamWorks winners are accepted on the spot to a UBC apprenticeship.
Trade Unions at Work
UBC. "Training is our biggest asset," says Bill Irwin, coordinator of UBC's Training Center in Millbury, Mass. "And we don't just train carpenters for a job. We train them for a career."
Nationwide, UBC spends $105 million annually on training alone. It runs a traditional paid apprenticeship program that combines classroom skills, on-the-job training (OJT), and career planning. During four-year apprenticeships, UBC apprentices must spend two weeks out of every six months in training. They're taught formwork, framing, flooring, interior systems (drywall, suspended ceilings, metal studs), and installing millwork. They also can obtain Lull forklift certifications and must pass OSHA's 10-hour safety course.
UBC calls their "earn while you learn" trade education program comprehensive because it covers different aspects of the trades, making it much like the old-world apprenticeships still practiced in Europe. While this program takes a systems view to training a "complete carpenter," it also teaches them production methods, says Irwin. "Our contractors need to deliver projects on time to compete, so [UBC] carpenters must be able to produce ... without callbacks." Lockett of BNA echoes this: "Virtually no one would disagree with the claim that the union apprenticeships are top-drawer."...
Meeting the Future
Business owners, managers, and employers have enormous impact on the quality of their workers' lives, something often ignored by business. The "Book of Trades," a clearinghouse of apprenticeships published in 1865, puts it this way: "Every human being ... will find that happiness mainly depends upon the work that he does and the manner in which it is done."
Since we often spend more time with our tools and crews than we do with our families, there's ample reason to make the work truly fulfilling, building what trade teacher Tenczar calls "our signature for life." How do we want that signature to look when the young guys take over? As today's leaders, owners, and skilled craftspeople near retirement, we must realize that we hold the answer in our hands--if only we can find and train the hands that will hold our legacy.
Mark Clement is senior editor of HANLEY-WOOD'S TOOLS OF THE TRADE.
Marketing News
This month Skilledworkers.com will be initiating a new marketing campaign with Zoom media in both Calgary and Vancouver. The campaign will be focusing on social venues that attract our desired demographic of Skilled trade Professionals in key areas throughout these industry hotbeds. Zoom media is the largest targeted lifestyle media and marketing company in Canada: 26,500 Billboards, 3,900 Establishments, 8 networks, 30 markets.
Testimonial of The Month
I was looking online at different job boards when I happened to come across your website Skilledworkers.com. It was Free, easy to use, and geared specifically for Skilled Trade Professionals. One week after uploading my resume as a Machinist; I found a great job in the field I was looking for. Thanks guys... I will pass on the Good Word... Nice to see someone is doing something about this Skilled Labor shortage.
Micheal Darko Marelic, Machinist
Editor: Jonathan Holmes
E-mail: jonathan@SkilledWorkers.com
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