Southern Indiana school could solve Hoosier construction worker shortage

In Indiana, there are more than 60,000 open construction jobs, according to Ali Brown, the executive director of the Indiana Construction Roundtable Foundation.

“We’ve got pent up demand across the board,” said Charlie Smith, the executive officer for the Building and Development Association of Southern Indiana. 

The intensity of local builders’ plight, as well as the far-reaching effects of the construction labor shortage, inspired Smith to reach out to Paul Holba, One Southern Indiana’s director of talent development, to brainstorm an innovative solution to the issue. Their idea: a building trades school.

BY BUSINESSES, FOR BUSINESSES

In the building construction world, the reason for a worker shortage goes back to the the Great Recession. When building slowed during that time period, many workers left the industry for other work, and while the economy has come back around, they haven’t, Smith said. Additionally, the profession is no longer as visible for workers who may have been interested in construction jobs. And regular people are feeling the impacts.

The cost of construction labor, as well as the price of land and lumber, has risen over the years. That high price has been passed onto consumers. It is now nearly impossible for a builder to sell a new home for less than $200,000, Smith said. Those $100,000 to $150,000 starter homes of yesteryear? “Those days are gone,” Smith said.

He and Holba believe a building trades school might help — maybe with home prices, but certainly with the pains that the businesses in the sector are feeling. Especially if those local businesses are involved in the school’s creation — as they were in the institution that inspired Smith.

The Colorado Homebuilding Academy in Denver was created to help that state’s construction labor shortage brought on by an explosion in demand for housing.

In Southern Indiana, as more jobs flow into the area through River Ridge and other business hubs, housing has become almost as needed and just as scarce. One study from the City of Jeffersonville predicts that the city will be short 2,000 housing units by 2027.

Currently, there are schools in the area that teach building trades, such as the Prosser Career Education Center, but they’re too generalized for Smith. The students who attend Prosser may learn how to build a home, but there is no program entirely devoted to just one part of building that home.

Local companies would help run Smith and Holba’s school, creating programs for the jobs they need filled the most, which are electricians, plumbers, masons and HVAC workers, according to Holba.

The building trades school would be a place for Prosser students to attend after they graduate or it could be for current employees of subcontractors or workers looking to make a career change. At the school, they’d be able to form relationships with the companies involved to get jobs with the businesses as soon as they graduate.

School costs could be subsidized by the employers (as long as the student works for them for a certain period of time), or by financial aid.

So far, local businesses and organizations have told Holba and Smith that they’re interested in the school, but because 1si and BDASI are nonprofits, Holba and 1si’s director of marketing and communications, Suzanne Ruark, don’t think they can fund the project on their own.

“We’re looking for that daring investor who can envision the future of Southern Indiana, who can actually anticipate what this place is going to be like in 2030, which is not going to look anything like it is now, and can take advantage of that,” Ruark said.

WHAT IT WILL GET YOU

1si and BDASI have not determined how much the creation of the school would cost. In many ways, their plans for it depend on how much they’re able to raise.

In addition to broaching the idea with businesses, Holba is interested in persuading local governments and organizations, such as the National Association of Builders and Contractors, to contribute to the project. He’s also applying for grants.

If 1si receives a building or enough money to open one, Holba and Ruark hope to create a brick and mortar location for the school.

If not, they’re open to offering a few classes within another organizations’ building. Once businesses and groups start to see the results, Ruark thinks that they’ll be more likely to contribute.

Potentially, Southern Indiana's school could be an example for similar ones across the state, both for building trades and other skilled industries, such as health care, said Ruark. But that's a dream.

First, the school needs investors. And students — which could be a challenge of its own.

AN UNDESIRABLE JOB

Smith remembers being told about the importance of going to college. People were so insistent about the idea that he was warned that he wouldn’t amount to anything if he didn’t attend.

As an adult, Smith doesn’t think that those people were right. 

“Every millionaire that I know here locally, none of them went to college,” he said.

While college graduates typically earn more than half of what those who just attended high school do, according to the left-leaning Economic Policy Institute, the median salary for an HVAC mechanic installer was still $47,080 in 2017, and the median salary for an electrician was $54,110, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

The average wage in the Louisville metropolitan area, which includes Southern Indiana, was $21.68 an hour, or around $45,000 a year for full-time employees.

Still, Smith and Holba don’t think that many parents or students think of construction jobs as viable options.

“In the words of a student at Charlestown High School, it’s not a sexy job, construction,” Holba said.

But not only can labor-heavy jobs pay the same as or more than the average local salary, Holba believes that they’re better for people who like to work outside or with their hands.

Smith is already trying to change the local perception of construction jobs. The BDASI is launching a program called Build Your Future, which will give local developers and builders in the area marketing materials that they can bring to places and events, such as schools and job fairs, to educate the public on available jobs.

“We want to start working in the schools, reaching out to the kids that are in the 5th and 6th and 7th grades to say, hey, you don’t just have to be an engineer… or a doctor or pick anything that requires years and years of university education,” Smith said. “There are other opportunities and options out there that you can start thinking about and working toward.”

DEVELOPMENT FOR ALL

Holba would like for the building trades school to host its first class in the fall of 2019.

1si is deeply involved with creating solutions for Southern Indiana’s labor shortage issue. The economic development organization has created a program called WorkHub completely devoted to the idea, which Holba is in charge of.

He is currently working on a series of classes meant to equip lower-level employees at local businesses with the skills that they need to become supervisors, as well as another program that helps local companies keep the workers that they currently employ.

Creating another program completely centered around building trades makes sense to Holba because, he believes, good homes are directly tied to attracting more companies to the area. For example, if Amazon had decided to establish its second headquarters in the Louisville area, those 50,000 jobs would have created an intense need for more homes.

“For me, [the school] was a perfect way to impact the community as a whole, provide jobs and provide the environment that businesses are looking for when they are looking to move to an area,” Holba said.