And now for the good news | Sick of the doom and gloom? A new report shines light on industry opportunities.
These days I’m feeling a lot like Bill Murray’s character in the movie “Groundhog Day.” It seems like every newspaper, magazine or industry report I read is running the same set of stories over and over and over again, ad nauseam: Oil and gas prices are at an all-time high, subprime mortgages are bankrupting families and businesses are shedding high-paying jobs faster than you can say, “Do you want fries with that?” After a steady diet of such distasteful news, it was refreshing recently to receive a palate-cleansing report from the Maine Department of Labor’s Center for Workforce Research and Information.
Entitled, “An Analysis of High-Demand, High-Wage Jobs in Maine,” the document casts a hopeful light on today’s increasingly dark economic conditions by identifying numerous growth areas in the state’s job market. The report notes that opportunities continue to abound in health care, which makes sense considering Maine has the highest median age in the country. Another booming sector is hospitality. Again, that comes as no shock in a state where tourism is the top industry. What did surprise me, however, is the number and variety of construction jobs that are expected to grow through 2014.
Sobered by rising energy costs and plummeting home values, consumers have constricted economic growth to the point where belt-tightening now verges on tourniquet-twisting. But as the DOL report underscores, the news isn’t all bad. In addition to the aforementioned health care and hospitality sectors, others such as higher education, trade, transportation and utilities are expected to thrive despite the general economic slowdown. That means new and rehabilitated infrastructure will be needed to accommodate the growth, which is heartening news for construction workers.
The education and health care industries together are expected to add more than 27,000 new jobs over the next six years. Toss in another 8,440 leisure and hospitality jobs and the ripple effect leads to nearly 2,000 additional construction-related jobs being created in specialty trades, civil engineering and the like. While that may not sound like much of an uptick, consider that the report states, “employment in goods-producing industries (manufacturing, construction and natural resources) accounted for nearly half of wage and salary jobs in Maine 60 years ago; today those industries account for just 15 percent of jobs.” Taken in that context, along with the DOL’s projection that manufacturing will lose 7,923 more positions, some might call the additional construction employment opportunities a veritable windfall. What’s more, the new construction jobs created will pay average wages from $35,483 to $46,564 annually, well above the all-industry average of $33,800
The return of voc-tech
A few of these positions, such as heavy equipment mechanics, require post-secondary education. But for the most part, construction offers some of the higher-growth and higher-wage employment opportunities for Mainers with limited education. And that’s important in a state where close to 16% of students fail to complete high school and more than 69% of adults lack college degrees (associate or higher), according to the Margaret Chase Smith Policy Center. For many of these workers, on-the-job training offers an important stepping stone toward personally fulfilling and financially rewarding careers. For example, the DOL anticipates 186 job openings annually for carpenters at a median hourly wage of $15.18. Another 87 construction supervisor/manager positions paying $21.09 will need to be filled each year, as will 72 electrician jobs at $20.89 per hour. Typically, entry-level employees are able to work their way through the ranks to reach these and similar construction positions, but what about industry sectors that need skilled, qualified workers sooner rather than later? That’s where tailored, targeted vocational programs come into play.
Voc-tech programs are making a comeback thanks to the increasing popularity of Maine’s community college system. One such course is training students to become heavy equipment operators, a field expected to add more than 80 jobs per year paying a median wage of $15.00 an hour. Recently recognized by Southern Maine Community College with its 2008 Partner Award for Entrepreneurial Leadership, the Heavy Equipment Operations program is designed to produce operators trained on earth-moving equipment such as bulldozers, backhoes, excavators and graders. The class — a collaborative effort spearheaded by contractors R.J. Grondin & Sons and Cianbro, heavy equipment dealers Chadwick-BaRoss and Milton CAT and former Maine Department of Transportation Commissioner Roger Mallar — also will provide an avenue for employment as the industry demand for qualified operators grows. That day may be nearer than expected, as Maine voters recently approved $59.5 million in transportation construction funding split nearly evenly between a bond issue and federal matching funds. Much of the work generated by the bond will require heavy equipment, as will other transportation and building sitework projects already in the pipeline.
“The new [Heavy Equipment Operations] program has enabled our students to get advanced training on the latest equipment, giving them a competitive advantage in the industry,” said SMCC President James Ortiz. And in this economy, Maine workers need every advantage they can get.
Scott Tompkins, director of business development at Ledgewood Construction, can be reached at editorial@mainebiz.biz.
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