Document text
More women work in trades Labor shortage means industry is now recruiting By BRIGITTE GREENBERG The Associated Press NEW HAVEN, Conn. -- From California to Connecticut, building contractors are desperately looking for women who are handy with a hammer and comfortable in a hard hat. With the economy booming and buildings going up left and right, the construction industry faces a severe labor shortage. As a result, recruiters have been looking to hire women straight out of high school and homemakers returning to the work force. They're even talking to grade-schoolers to prime the next generation. "The industry is just dying for people. We don't care what kind -- man, woman, whatever," said Robert Moorhead, spokesman for the National Center for Construction Education and Research in Gainesville, Fla. According to the Labor Department, just 2 percent of the 4.84 million construction jobs in the United States are filled by women. Recruiting women is made difficult by what Moorhead sees as an image problem: that all construction workers are burly men who lift large pieces of metal and dig ditches. In its recruitment effort, the industry stresses that technology has eliminated many old questions about whether women have the upper body strength necessary. Still women seem to gravitate toward positions where manual dexterity is important: electrical and plumbing crafts, for instance. "Women make great tapers, plasterers and spacklers because it's methodical detail work," said Stephanie Collier, executive director of Alpha Development Group, a nonprofit economic development group in New London, Conn. Arlene Berger, 47, a carpenter in Waterford, Conn., for 17 years, finds the work highly rewarding. "There's a sense of accomplishment," she said. Kimberly Salvatore, 42, a mother of three and a site engineer for C.R. Klewin Northeast, a construction company in Norwich, Conn., said she occasionally gets some ribbing about her long fingernails. "You have to be pretty tough to last, but it's worth it," she said. In addition to recruiting adults, the industry is hoping to make children think differently. The Associated General Contractors recently started an educational program for fifth-graders showing construction jobs in a more positive light. Patsy Smith, president of the 6,200-member National Association of Women in Construction, said her organization is also going into schools to change perceptions. "Young people are taught that. ... `Well if you don't get an education, you can always dig ditches,"' Smith said. "That's not what everyone in construction does, and even those that do are making good money." Government statistics show how much the demand is rising. The construction industry contributed nearly $329 billion to the economy in 1997, up by nearly $100 billion from just five years before. One industry forecast recently predicted construction will rise to nearly $375 billion in 1999. At the same time, the industry has had a shortage of 30,000 to 40,000 workers for the past two years, said Howard B. Stussman, editor in chief of Engineering News-Record, a trade publication. "Contractors have a backlog. Some in the Pacific Northwest have had to turn away work," Stussman said. Another factor feeding the demand for women is federal regulation. To get a share of lucrative federal business, contractors must show that women put in 6.9 percent of all hours on a project. Today's Business Index Mail Tribune Copyright � The Mail Tribune 1999, Medford, Oregon USA