Hartford Business Journal

HARTFORDBUSINESS.COM | JANUARY 27, 2025 15 • CONSTRUCTION MANAGEMENT • GENERAL CONTRACTING • DESIGN–BUILD 2 1 D E M I N G R D , B E R L I N , C T 0 6 0 3 7 • ( 8 6 0 ) 6 1 0 - 1 0 9 3 • W W W. O L S E N C S . C O M VISIT OUR NEW WEBSITE! Cyclical nature Connecticut currently has 62,500 construction workers — one of the higher levels of employment since the 2008 financial crisis, which signifi- cantly reduced the industry's work- force. The sector employed 69,000 workers in January 2008, according to state Department of Labor data. Nationally, the federal Bureau of Labor Statistics forecasts that total construction employment will rise from 7.03 million in 2021, to 7.28 million in 2031, for a net need of more than 25,000 workers per year. "Our members are very hungry for workers right now," Fryxell said. "When we speak to ABC contractors, almost every single one of them are looking for additional workers to help the business grow and also to meet current demand in their backlog." And hence the dispute over the hiring ratio, which non-union shops and trade associations like ABC see as an unnecessary bottleneck in the workforce pipeline. But not everyone agrees. Unions in the licensed trades, like the Inter- national Brotherhood of Electrical Workers, have opposed any funda- mental changes to the ratio system. Residential construction doesn't offer the same level of wages that industrial and commercial construc- tion does, and Sean Daly, the busi- ness manager of IBEW Local 90 in New Haven, believes that side of the business simply wants the ability to hire more apprentices to keep costs down. "To me, it's just a search for cheap labor," Daly said. He also points to the cyclical nature of construction. The resi- dential market has been hot in the recent past, but fluctuates with interest rates. " They want to have as many apprentices as they want, and then as soon as they're not busy they get rid of them," he said. "Taking in too many apprentices would only put twice as many young kids out of work." And, he says, unscrupulous contrac- tors sometimes don't educate those apprentices properly, or even credit them with the worksite hours they need to become journeymen, keeping them trapped at a lower wage. But Daly does agree that the waiv- er-request process — what's known as ratio relief — should be a lot easier. That's the compromise he'd rather see than legislation to change the ratio itself. "Sometimes it takes 12 weeks," he pointed out. "The Department of Labor should just set up a website where a contractor can log in and ask — ' I have this many journeymen and this many apprentices, can I get another apprentice?' And they should be able to answer that real fast. We've been talking to the department for three years about doing it." 'Primary pipeline' Marc Okun, the business manager for Carpenters Local 326, also believes that lower wages in the residential sector give an impression of a more acute worker shortage than actually exists. "There isn't a lack of people for higher-end trades," he said. "I think where the people are lacking is probably in the residential or subcontractor market like the home remod- eling, because they're lower paid." For Okun, instead of considering the hiring ratio, a more helpful change the legislature could make this session would be to require that contractors who win large public contracts, like school construction, include apprentices in their bids. He says young people's interest in the trades is very high — the union's apprenticeship program is currently oversubscribed — but fewer people make it through the selection process. He has about 250 active apprentices in Connecticut, and about 30 to 40 graduate each year. "I think what we end up seeing is people think that it's a way to make fast, easy money, and they don't realize how hard it actually is," he said. Nevertheless, the union is seeking ways to improve the workforce pipe- line. Last year it lowered the entry age for its apprenticeship program from 18 to 17, meaning that current high schoolers can join. Brent McCartney, an education consultant with the Connecticut Technical High Schools system, says that change is exciting because it allows the schools and unions to work together to mentor students in the industry. "Our goal is to be the primary pipeline for a lot of this workforce," McCartney said. The technical high schools system recently debuted its CTECS Career Center, a LinkedIn-style communication app for contractors and other employers to communi- cate with staff and students about their hiring needs. And the system's work-based learning program allows students 16 and older to get work experience with employers for both a wage and school credit. McCartney also says CTECS' curriculum is changing to accom- modate real-world developments in industry. Eli Whitney Technical High School's carpentry offering, for example, was recently expanded into a building and civil construction program. That change was prompted by the passage of the federal Bipartisan Infrastructure Act, which is expected to bring $5.4 billion in infrastructure funding to Connecticut — a boost to the construction industry. "We couldn't fit in those skills in a typical carpentry program, so we needed to adapt," McCartney said. Brent McCartney Marc Okun

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