North Texas has a severe shortage of construction workers, and the new 20-year plan for Dallas County Workforce Solutions to be presented Tuesday will promote construction trades.
Home builder Alan Hoffman said the worker shortage makes new homes more expensive, and takes crews longer to build them.
"I have to manage expectations and tell folks it's going to take a little bit longer because the labor shortage has really impacted the time it takes to get a job done," Hoffman said.
For instance, Hoffman said a crew of electricians to wire a home might have included five or six workers in years past. Now, just two workers come to the job.
"When I was having five to six people on the crew, my price was the same. So now I have two and I'm paying the same. So ultimately it's costing me more, there's longer interest carrying, but I'm getting less," he said.
Reasons for the shortage include tougher immigration enforcement that makes it difficult for foreign workers to reach North Texas, and an aging workforce that is seeing workers retire at a higher rate than new workers enter.
"The ones we're targeting at Workforce Solutions are the higher skilled jobs there that require some training," Dallas County Judge Clay Jenkins said.
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A new 20-year plan from the Dallas County job training agency Workforce Solutions to be presented to Dallas County Commissioners Tuesday will include a bigger emphasis on skilled construction trades.
Workforce Solutions helps link job seekers with higher paying employment.
"That will push people out of jobs that are paying below what will support their family and into jobs that will be a career," Jenkins said.
North Lake College in Irving offers many of the construction training programs.
Part of the challenge is to educate young people about the opportunities in construction careers.
"Nobody sits around the table as a kid and says, 'When I grow up I want to be a pipe fitter.' But a pipe fitter can make $100,000 a year," Jenkins said.
Hoffman said he has worked with Collin County Community College to promote construction training.
"We knew that education was the first place we needed to go," Hoffman said. "This is a fundamental problem we have to address with a long term solution."
Hoffman's firm is currently building an eight-home project in East Dallas near Bryan Adams High School on a large piece of land that once had just one house. He said there was strong demand for the energy efficient houses that will be around 2,400 square feet and sell in the $500,000 to $600,000 price range.
"For young people that aren't college bound, we actually have high paying jobs, and we can get somebody into a career that will be a long time, rewarding career that maybe they didn't know about," Hoffman said.
