Construction is under way at a new housing development in Roanoke. (Ian McVea/Fort Worth Star-Telegram/MCT)
The Associated General Contractors of America has joined the national Hiring Our Heroes program as part of a construction industry effort to hire at least 100,000 veterans in five years.
Association chief executive officer Stephen E. Sandherr said today that many construction companies report having a hard time identifying military personnel who are ready to leave active duty and enter the private labor force.
“The only thing keeping many of our members from hiring vets is figuring out how to find them,” Sandherr said in a statement. “This new partnership will make it easier for construction firms to find, recruit and hire veterans” via access to job fairs and other recruiting tools used by the Hiring Our Heroes program.
The action comes as two-thirds of construction companies report having difficulty finding skilled workers. The partnership with Hiring Our Heroes will be a key part of Associated General Contractors’ Workforce Development Plan.
Even though Texas companies of all types reported steady or increased hiring from April to late May, some noted continued difficulty in finding skilled workers, according to a Federal Reserve survey of economic conditions in the Dallas district released last week. The Dallas district includes all of Texas, northern Louisiana and southern New Mexico.
The fed report also found that wage pressures were the strongest for skilled workers in the construction and energy industries.
Texas added 7,500 construction jobs in April — the most in any month since July 2005, according to government data. (The Texas numbers have been adjusted for seasonal fluctuations.)
The trends are similar for the Dallas-Fort Worth area, but construction jobs are mingled with energy jobs and the numbers have not been seasonally adjusted, so it’s hard to get a true picture of construction employment growth.
Nationally, employers added 6,000 construction workers in May and the industry’s unemployment rate fell to 8.6 percent, according to the Associated General Contractors of America.
Total construction employment at the local, state and national level are at their highest levels in five years.