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Career education is a vital pipeline to high demand jobs in the workforce. Students from all walks of life benefit from the opportunity to pursue their career education goals and find new employment opportunities. Join Dr. Jason Altmire, President and CEO of Career Education Colleges and Universities (CECU), as he discusses the issues and innovations affecting postsecondary career education. Twice monthly, he and his guests discuss politics, business, and current events impacting education and public policy.
Jason Altmire [00:00:05]:
Welcome to another edition of Career Education Report. I'm Jason Altmire. We are going to talk again today about the talent shortage in America because it is such a critical problem facing the country. And in particular, we're going to talk about the construction industry and the skilled trades because there's a huge shortage of workers. And one of the organizations doing something about that is the Building Talent Foundation. And we are grateful to be joined by the chief executive officer of the Building Talent Foundation. She's Branka Minich. Branka, thank you for being with us.
Branka Minic [00:00:45]:
Thank you for having me, Jason.
Jason Altmire [00:00:47]:
We've had the opportunity to work together on these issues and I thought our audience would really enjoy getting to meet you. Maybe we can start by talking about the foundation itself. What is its mission? Where does the funding come from? Why does it exist?
Branka Minic [00:01:03]:
So Building Talent foundation, or we call it BTF, was established in 2019 by 22 largest home building companies. These companies realized that they cannot address the shortage of workforce and talent in their industry by playing in their own sandboxes. That they needed to join their efforts and their resources and establish an organization that will be only focused on the issue of securing the talent for the future. So that's how we started to exist. We are a 501c3 nonprofit and we have a national presence. We are in 27 markets and hope to open three more before the end of this year.
Jason Altmire [00:01:50]:
And these are companies, I think it's really important what you said, they compete with each other. These are business competitors that generally do their own thing and operate in that competitive environment. But they have identified the talent shortage as an issue that affects all of them together. And they have come together financially but also in forming this foundation to support that work. So how do they go about doing that?
Branka Minic [00:02:17]:
So the 22 home building companies, you know, Lennar Dear, Horton Meritage, Taylor Morrison, Toll Brothers, they are, I call them gorilla home building companies. They are really, really big. And I think between all of them, they might be building up to 50% of all the homes in United States. So when they don't have the talent they need, when they don't have the crews on their job sites to build homes, they, their companies are stuck. And it's very similar to having problems in supply chain with materials. When you have issues in your talent supply, you also cannot operate. It takes about 3,000 frontline workers to build 1,000 homes. And many reports, many reports from very authoritative sources suggest that we are lacking about a million and a half homes in United States States right now for the families that are at that point where they want to move into their own home to become homeowners.
Branka Minic [00:03:28]:
So this is a big problem not only for the industry and these companies. This is a problem for communities. Jason, we know communities are much better in their outcomes. They are thriving better and showing better results on health, on education, on less crime, less teen pregnancies, when the home ownership is of better density. So if we want our communities to thrive, if we want to build those homes that we are lacking, we need the workforce to support that growth. So that's why this is a big problem, not only for these companies that are funding us and they are behind us, but also for us as a country.
Jason Altmire [00:04:17]:
When you say that number of homes that are lacking across the country, is there data that shows the reason why there is that shortage of homes and how much of that reason is because of the lack of the workers being able to find the workers that can carry out that work and build those homes?
Branka Minic [00:04:38]:
So labor is not the only problem that is affecting the housing supply in United States. There are other issues like legislation, zoning, the availability of materials, the availability of lots of land, where to build those homes. But everybody agrees that the lack of talent is a crucial part of the reason why we cannot build the homes that we need to build.
Jason Altmire [00:05:08]:
What are the type of jobs that we're talking about? When you talk about folks that are actually involved in building a home, what are the workers that are needed?
Branka Minic [00:05:18]:
So we are talking about 40 different skill trade types of companies that are hiring people like framers and roofers and carpenters and installers and technicians and H vac technicians and plumbers and electricians and solar panel installers and so many different profiles, but all of them are non degreed positions, skilled positions. And these people are both craftsmen and I would say also artists. Building a home requires a lot of skills, but also it requires that the person has that attention to detail and the sense of beauty. It's beautiful to build homes.
Jason Altmire [00:06:06]:
And I've heard you talk about this before. Do you have right now at your fingertips some data that can talk about the problem itself? How many workers are needed? What is the actual shortage?
Branka Minic [00:06:20]:
So for the last 10 or 15 years, that number is in hundreds of thousands of positions and it fluctuates. So at the peak, we needed 450,000 people last year. Right now that number is a little bit lower. It's like in three hundreds. But still we, we need a lot of workers to join this industry. And on the other side, if you look at what is happening with the growth, this industry is projected to grow at 4.5% for the next several years. To fuel that growth and to take into account people who are retiring, all the baby boomers generation, we need about 250,000 young people, 16, 17, 18 year olds to choose construction as a career. But we only have 100 to 120,000 of them choosing careers in construction.
Branka Minic [00:07:19]:
So we need a lot more people to come into the industry if we want to follow the growth of this sector as it is projected.
Jason Altmire [00:07:31]:
And there's a number of aspects to the problem. One is getting young people interested in the trades, letting them know that that is a viable and worthwhile career path. We'll talk about that. The other is to come up with an opportunity for them to know where the vacancies are and to allow the folks that you're working with, but anyone involved in the construction industry to find workers that are willing to work and they want to be paired together, which is part of the work that your foundation does. And then you want to make sure that the employers are actively engaged in helping to solve the problem. So looking at those three things, what is the foundation doing to solve the problem? First, working with the young people to get them interested.
Branka Minic [00:08:19]:
You're absolutely right, Jason. When we analyzed where does this shortage of talent come from, we recognize those three different challenges. The talent pipeline challenge, the talent connections, and also the talent engagement. So we are working across all of those three work streams. We have three programs, and in the first program, building Talent Pipeline, we work with young people and with career changers to inspire them to join programs that are training them towards these careers. So we basically bring industry professionals as role models. We talk about what are the career pathways. We bring people onto our career events to discuss what are their options.
Branka Minic [00:09:12]:
Because really, young people, their parents and the school counselors, the high school, in high schools are not necessarily aware of all the variety of different possibilities for people in this industry and in these non degreed skilled trade positions.
Jason Altmire [00:09:33]:
And when you're talking about young people, you've mentioned high school, but do you go below that even to middle school, maybe even elementary school to start them thinking about this as a possible career path?
Branka Minic [00:09:44]:
Yes, as much as we can, Jason, with our limited resources, we go also into younger youth and talk about the beauty of building. We also do some activities with them to get them to understand how beautiful it is to see when you build something with your own hands. So yes, we do.
Jason Altmire [00:10:06]:
And what have you noticed with regard to women? I know you and I have talked about this, but we are seeing with our schools across the country a noticeable increase in the number of women that are getting into the trades and showing interest in that career path. Are you seeing the same thing?
Branka Minic [00:10:23]:
Absolutely. And I'm so happy to see that because I think women make very good construction workers. In fact, I'm going to tell you a story, Jason. When I was in Houston, I met with the tiling company and the owner was very successful. He had 10 crews of people installing tiles all throughout Houston and working for many builders. So he told me that one of his crews is actually all female crew and very, very good crew. When he was doing his own home and he wanted to put tiles, guess which crew he selected to do his own home? The one that was all girls. So, yes, women can be very good in this industry.
Branka Minic [00:11:08]:
And I'm so glad that you see the increase in numbers because we see also in our placements with employers, we have almost 18% women. The industry is less than 4% in frontline position. So we're very proud of the fact that our employers are opening those opportunities for various talented people.
Jason Altmire [00:11:33]:
One of the programs you have that I like is the Adopt a group program where builders and their trade partners will adopt students, so to speak, and engage them in projects like build it yourself type projects. Talk a little bit about how that works.
Branka Minic [00:11:49]:
Well, our builders are very committed to the mission that we all set to accomplish. And I have so many examples. For example, we have one initiative all year long with Taylor Morrison. It's called Spreading the Love of Home Building, where the volunteers from Taylor Morrison go into schools and work with the students all day long. Or we bring those students to their job sites and to the offices of Taylor Morrison. And the young people can visit all various departments and different trade positions and understand what is actually happening when. When you are building a home. So that's just one example.
Branka Minic [00:12:32]:
But we have other builders and also manufacturers who are active in this area, who are coming with product demonstrations, who are building different training modules and bringing to schools, who are also donating equipment so the schools can train these individuals on the latest technology in the build.
Jason Altmire [00:12:54]:
Sciences, which is hugely important because that technology is changing so rapidly. You want people to be as current when they're taking those jobs.
Branka Minic [00:13:04]:
Yes, we see that also focus on upskilling. So it is not any longer just important to get a person into a job. It is more and more important that the entry level person comes with certain skills and certifications and also that the person continues to learn on the job or in the evening hours and continues to improve those skills and craftsmanship. We have calculated with our builders that the lack of skills, especially what they call high value skills, dramatically impacts the success of the project and also the cost, the final cost of that house. So if we want to have more affordable homes, the skills of the people who build those homes have to be at a high level. That's why, you know, what the schools teach and what the employers teach on the job is very important. And the investment that we do as a country in training is extremely important.
Jason Altmire [00:14:19]:
And that's that middle step that is so important. You start by getting the young people interested. Now they decide, yes, I want to do this, I want to get trained. And then the last step, of course, is matching them with an employer once they are trained. But that middle step, finding the right setting for them to get their education. How does your foundation help pair students with the schools and the opportunities to be trained?
Branka Minic [00:14:46]:
So, very early on, we said that for us, the success is measured if we take a young person into employment or if we take them into training, that leads to employment. So for us, those two outcomes are equally important. And we measure every successful enrollment that we have accomplished with a young person or a career changer entering a good program. We talk about our partners and the training programs that exist in each market. When we are in schools, we display links to those programs on our jobs to build platform for young people to be able to directly enroll in those programs. We talk to employers and connect them with our partner schools so that employers know, participate and support local schools. So we find a number of ways how to promote these schools and what they are offering to young people in terms of their future careers.
Jason Altmire [00:16:03]:
Is there a tangible number that exists or some sort of data that shows the impact that the work of the foundation has had? Like a number of students that have been touched or gone through this program and been able to find work specifically because they engaged with the foundation.
Branka Minic [00:16:22]:
So we are at 229,000 people, young people that we have served in terms of career coaching and mentoring and bringing them to that level of decision making whether they will choose these careers for themselves. And we have placed specifically into employment 5,000 disadvantaged individuals. So youth that has possibly dropped out of high schools or college, or people who were unemployed, people who were even homeless. We have helped them specifically to get jobs in the industry.
Jason Altmire [00:17:02]:
It's so important to do that because obviously you want everyone to have an opportunity and everybody wins. Obviously, the individual, most importantly wins in their family, but the community wins because the construction is Ongoing and the opportunity for builders to build homes for other people that are going to move into those homes. So there's just such a ripple effect that exists when you help these individuals.
Branka Minic [00:17:29]:
I think University of Chicago had a study that if you have a young person who doesn't become a productive citizen with a job with a taxpayer, that that person costs society $215,000 per year, not only because of lost productivity, but also because of all the social services. Because when you are without a job, there are issues, there are problems. That's where drugs, crime, you know, all the wrong things happen. So I really believe that the only way out of poverty and the only way to really have thriving communities is when people do have access to employment and to education and to affordable housing.
Jason Altmire [00:18:16]:
An issue that we have found related going back to the high school's students before they've been trained. The guidance counselors now are much more accepting of the idea that the trades is a good career path. It used to be that maybe they didn't necessarily dissuade students from going into the trades, although that did happen, but they just didn't talk about it as an option. You'd have the college fair and there, there wouldn't be the trades represented. And when students asked for advice from the guidance counselor, they wouldn't receive the trades as an option as part of the response. Have you found that that has improved somewhat?
Branka Minic [00:19:00]:
I think the narrative is changing, although I still feel that parents and school counselors are not completely aware of the potential of these careers and that I think what bothers me the most, Jason, is that it's always either or. It's not either or. It's not that if you select when you are 18 or 19, if you go and you do skilled trades as your primary job, that you will never go to university, will never get that college degree. No, you choose to be independent, financially independent. You choose not to have that big debt, to have a college loan. You choose to have fun and be productive right away and you postpone maybe that big decision and that big investment of what kind of college degree I want to acquire. We see today many young people who got college degrees and then they realize that that was not the right thing for them. Why make the mistake when you are not ready to make that big choice? Why not have a great career in construction or other skilled trades position and then have maybe your company pay for your additional training in a structured educational institution?
Jason Altmire [00:20:22]:
I've seen some data and some news reports that home building may be on the decline a little Bit just statistically, it's not growing as quickly as it used to. Do you see that in the market that there's a little bit of a downturn in the housing construction market. And if so, what do you think contributes to that?
Branka Minic [00:20:43]:
Well, this industry is cyclical and seasonal. It has its ups and downs. And specifically now there is definitely a softening that could be for all kinds of reasons, probably interest rates. You know, I'm not an economist to really analyze it, but we have seen that the companies are not hiring at the same rate. They're still hiring. I just heard of 21 positions who that were posted by one company today for electricians in Florida. So yes, the companies are still hiring, definitely. But there is some softening that we recognize.
Branka Minic [00:21:24]:
However, we cannot stop telling young people about the potential in these careers. We cannot stop developing, upskilling, reskilling, teaching these trades and we cannot stop embracing young people into these jobs because they need to develop and replace all the ones that are retiring pretty soon. You know that 40% are expected to retire by 2031. This industry is aging fast.
Jason Altmire [00:21:59]:
Yeah. And these are jobs that will wear you down over time. The aging process really does matter when you're talking about this physical blue collar labor.
Branka Minic [00:22:10]:
Yeah. But when you think that those are the people who carry the most knowledge. So we actually need to upskill the current young workers who are already on the jobs. And as soon as they move up in their career journeys, we need to refill those entry level positions with new talent. So we need a lot more focus on getting young people into schools, giving them the proper training and education and bringing them into jobs.
Jason Altmire [00:22:43]:
So on that note, if somebody wanted to learn more about the Building Talent foundation, the work that you do and how to support your work, how would they find you?
Branka Minic [00:22:53]:
So we have a website, buildingtf.org so that's one way. But also we have a career platform, jobstobuild.com that is open to all the employers and all the students, all the individuals who are seeking jobs or just want to explore careers. It's no cost ever to anybody. So this is a fully open platform. We are supporting that platform and we have a team of people who are willing to also work with individuals seeking employment as career coaches and placement specialists.
Jason Altmire [00:23:31]:
Our guest today has been Branka Minich. She is the Chief Executive officer of the Building Talent Foundation. Branka, thank you for being with us.
Branka Minic [00:23:41]:
Thank you, Jason. It was a pleasure.
Jason Altmire [00:23:46]:
Thanks for joining me for this episode of the Career Education Report. Subscribe and rate us on Apple Podcasts Google Play, Spotify, or wherever you listen to podcasts. For more information, visit our website at career.org and follow us on Twitter @CECUED. That's at C-E-C-U-E-D. Thank you for listening.