There is no shortage of homes under construction in Maple Grove's Bonaire development, but if you talk with industry officials, you quickly learn there is a shortage of skilled workers to build those homes.
"It's across the board, it's a wide spectrum of trades that are difficult to find to perform the work," said Morgan Bickel, Director of Construction for Lennar.
At residential construction sites throughout the metro, there are jobs to be had in skilled trades like framing, carpentry, plumbing, and mechanicals. It's a sharp contrast from several years ago when the recession brought the housing industry to a standstill.
New single family home construction is now on the rise, up 43% in the metro in 2012, but the construction industry is still dealing with an image problem from 2008.
"What's happened the last five years with building being down 80%, a lot of people realized their dad, or their uncle, or their brother lost a job in the trades, or their pay went down, and they didn't go into those trades, so the pipeline for people coming through there is very dry," said John Zirbes of Lyman Lumber Company.
In some cases, the need for skilled trade workers is slowing down the construction process by three to four weeks, according to Bickel. "The challenge has been to make sure that we hit the date that we've provided our customers," said Bickel.
Efforts are currently underway at the Builders Association of the Twin Cities (BATC) to get the word out to area technical schools and colleges that construction is coming back and jobs are waiting.
"What we're trying to do is reach out and realize, help these people realize that there's demand, the pays gone up, the benefits are better, and there's a huge need for skilled trades," said Zirbes, who is also a member of a BATC task force working on the issue.
According to Minnesota's Department of Employment and Economic Development, 4,400 construction jobs have been added in the state since October of 2011.
Zirbes said at Lyman Lumber Company, they have a framing division that would hire another 50 to 100 people, if they could find them.
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