Local unions, schools are trying to head off a trade-worker jobs crisis – Chicago Tribune

If you're waiting longer these days to get an appointment with an electrician, plumber or carpenter, don't blame it only on summer vacations.

There's a growing shortage of these skilled workers that perform essential jobs at major construction sites and inside customers' homes. Even in a strengthening economy, more experienced and older trade workers are retiring.

Unfortunately, there aren't enough younger people poised to take their places.

That has to change because left unchecked, this could blossom into an acute skilled worker shortage that touches everyone. It will mean higher costs or delays for those building new office towers, rehabbing houses or merely dealing with annoying, everyday emergencies like clogged toilets and sinks.

Some local schools, unions and companies are working to ease the labor crunch. That's an important mission, and more organizations need to get on board.

"This could be a very large problem," says Mark Klein, co-president of Lincolnshire-based Klein Tools, which makes products for the electrical industry and electricians. "It's a huge supply and demand issue."

A recent survey of more than 600 union and nonunion electricians found that 56 percent said more experienced electricians are leaving the field, compared with 44 percent in 2015, according to an analysis of independent research commissioned by Klein.

What's more, 40 percent of those asked say they are concerned there won't be enough qualified electricians available in the coming years to meet demand.

A similar dynamic is running through plumbing, carpentry and other construction-related trades where the median worker age is over 40 years old and the need for new workers is building, according to the Washington D.C.-based National Association of Home Builders.

Why did this job crunch happen?

The Great Recession and subprime mortgage meltdown of the late 2000s and early 2010s took a toll. The economic disaster meant a loss of nearly 1.5 million construction-related jobs, with hundreds of thousand workers leaving the field for good. Many independent contractors also went out of business.

Those construction businesses that endured didn't spend much-needed cash on mentoring or recruiting new workers. Unions, which also were reeling from related economic hardships, cut back on paid apprenticeships. That kept many young people out of the trade job pipeline.

But there's another hurdle to attracting new workers: lack of exposure to the trades at an early age.

As high school shop classes and other related "build-it-yourself" experiences are being taken out of curricula, students don't get much hands-on exposure to making stuff and problem-solving.

Nor do they get a chance to envision the trades as a career option versus a four-year college degree.

We need to appreciate that some people have a talent for working with their hands and solving those daunting difficulties that come with creating and fixing things.

As someone who has a hard time switching on the snowblower and comes from a family that could repair mostly anything mechanical, I've long admired those abilities.

Lately, there's been a burgeoning effort to recruit younger people to fill these important positions. Increasingly, it's across-the-board with higher education, business and unions stepping up to do the sales pitch that says, barring other Great Recession calamities, an enduring and good-paying career is possible.

Taking part are area community colleges, including the City Colleges of Chicago. The system's Dawson Technical Institute, part of Kennedy-King College, offers programs in carpentry, plumbing, electric line work and more.

In a few weeks, the Chicago-based Plumbers Local 130 is opening a state-of-the-art training center that will expose apprentices to "real world" construction scenarios and plumbing issues. The center also will focus on how to work with "green" technology and rainwater harvesting, says James Coyne, business manager of the 6,000-member local.

For its part, Klein is investing $2 million over five years in union and business programs that develop training, scholarships and an endowment that provides tools to upcoming electricians.

This is all good but it's only a start.

More local unions, companies and educational institutions have to come to the rescue. They must push themselves to be more creative and inclusive than ever before, opening the trades further to women and minorities.

And as Plumbers Local 130 is showing, there's also a need to emphasize new ways of doing the jobs, one that offers greater rewards by stressing emerging environmental and technological advances.

At the same time, it would be great if more experienced workers, retired or not, took a while to mentor and teach students about their crafts sort of what the federal government-backed SCORE volunteer network does to advise small business owners.

Let's get going. We can't wait much longer for a new wave of electricians, plumbers and carpenters to arrive.

roreed@chicagotribune.com

Twitter @reedtribbiz

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Local unions, schools are trying to head off a trade-worker jobs crisis - Chicago Tribune