Contractors in Florida Give Teenagers a Taste of the Construction Trades

Construction Career Day workers spent the day building walls and they were also tearing them down metaphorically speaking by showing teenagers what jobs are like and are out there in the skilled trades.

Fla. Contractors Give Teenagers a Taste of the Construction Trades
South Florida Sun-Sentinel
By Wayne K. Roustan Staff writer

- About 300 teenagers spent a sweltering Saturday afternoon laying bricks, building cabinets, welding steel and driving tractors in Pompano Beach.

They were members of the Boys and Girls Clubs of Broward County participating in the fourth annual Construction Career Day with more than a dozen local contractors.

Despite years of economic slowdown in the nation’s construction industry, Florida’s Agency for Workforce Innovation forecasts 20 percent growth in construction payrolls through 2018 in Broward and Miami-Dade counties.

“We’ve had a rough couple of years but we’re seeing a big, big turnaround in the local economy as it relates to construction,” said Jim Robertson, president of Allegiance Crane and Equipment.

“There is a need for labor. The economy is coming back in South Florida,” Robertson said. “Ask any contractor. We’re bidding work. It’s increased drastically in the last couple of months.”

There’s also the realization that not every high school student will go to college.

“So, we have an alternative direction for our teenagers, and that’s in the trades,” said Matt Organ, executive vice president of the Boys and Girls Clubs of Broward County.

Nearly 20 work stations were set up around the Thomas Stephanis Boys and Girl Club, 212 NW 16th St.

Groups of teenagers shifted from station to station to get hands-on exposure to the many trades’ tools.

“They learn crane operation, equipment operation, they build a brick paver driveway, they do block masonry, air conditioning, general contracting, architecture and all various trades that you’ll need,” Robertson said.

Sign-up sheets filled quickly with teens eager to try their hand at a trade.

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