Wisconsin Sees Rising Demand For Skilled Construction Workers

Home construction is on the rise in Wisconsin, but the industry is finding it difficult to hire skilled workers. A northern Wisconsin technical college and workforce development board have teamed up to offer a construction training course to meet the demand.

Eric Lockwood, project manager of continuing education with Wisconsin Indianhead Technical College in Ashland, said the new course, “Construction Essentials,” is designed to meet the need for skilled workers.

“It focuses on construction framing where they learn about safety … using power tools, building materials, plans, codes, building layout — things like that,” he said.

Lockwood said they’ve offered the course to students at the Clayton School District, WITC-Ashland and Lac Courte Oreilles Community College. He noted the course is mobile and can be customized to any length.

Close to 30 students are on track to receive a short-term technical diploma through the nine-credit course. The credits can be applied to a technical degree if an individual decides to continue their education.

Building permits for single-family homes went up 11 percent last year, according to the Wisconsin Builders Association. Executive Director Brad Boycks said permits are also up about 12 percent in the first three months of this year.

“There are instances where we’ve heard from folks who have openings and they’re unfortunately not able to fill those,” he said.

Andrea Huggenvik, sector and strategies coordinator with the Northwest Wisconsin Workforce Investment Board, said they teamed up with WITC to offer the course because the area is slated to a 17 percent increase in construction workers over the next seven years. The Chequamegon Bay region had 1,148 construction laborers in 2014, which is expected to grow to 1,346 by 2024, according to the workforce board.

“This is a nationwide trend that we’re really seeing not as many students going into trades, and we’re really seeing that we need people in those sectors,” she said.

The number of construction workers in Wisconsin bottomed out at 92,400 after the housing bubble burst. Since then, the number of construction workers has grown to more than 115,000 as of this April in preliminary figures from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, which is the most the construction industry in Wisconsin has seen since October 2008.