PHOENIX (By Yvette Armendariz, Arizona Republic) October 30, 2005 — Educators in Arizona, Florida and Mexico are developing a first-of-its-kind training program to fill a growing lack of skilled construction workers across the United States.

The goal is to create certification for electricians, plumbers, carpenters and others from Mexico who are in high demand from Arizona to Louisiana to Virginia.

"The hope is you have common skills on either side of the border," said Lupe Carbajal, chief executive officer of constructNet International Inc. "It's almost a foundation for a guest-worker program."

Carbajal's company is coordinating the collaboration among Arizona State University, Monterrey Technological Institute of Advanced Studies in Mexico and the National Center for Construction Education and Research in Gainesville, Fla.

The program is in the early negotiation stages, he said. The training would include an online component in Spanish and the teaching of "construction English." Carbajal said that of the approximately 6 million construction workers in the United States, about 2 million are Spanish-dominant speakers.

The training is considered crucial because the industry is expected to add 1 million jobs nationwide by 2012. Arizona is projected to create more than 61,400 jobs by 2013. Those figures don't include workers who leave the industry or retire. That could represent another 250,000 openings per year.

"We need to replenish those people," said Marty Alvarez, president of Chandler-based general contractor Sun Eagle Corp. "The foresight to look at the Mexican market is ideal . . . it's modern global thinking."

Immigrant labor from Mexico and South America is critical. The Arizona construction industry employs about 215,000 people. A significant but unknown number of them are undocumented. Many workers don't speak English or lack skills for fast-growing carpentry, electrical and plumbing jobs.

Mexico has training programs for workers, Carbajal said, but some standards are different in the United States so a common training program is needed. Also, not all Mexican workers have training.

In the United States, schools increasingly are cutting shop programs and parents rarely encourage construction careers.

Ricardo Carlo, executive director of the Associated Minority Contractors of America chapter in Phoenix, said the industry has been promoting construction careers that pay well over $20 an hour if a worker has specialized skills.

"But there is not much interest from younger kids," he said. "So we're going to have to utilize workers from other countries just to keep up with demand."

The shortage results in delays in the construction of housing, roads and commercial buildings, said J. Doug Pruitt, chairman and chief executive officer of Sundt Construction, a national contractor based in Tempe.

"But the sense of urgency has not reached a peak to get the attention of educators," Pruitt said.

Pruitt introduced the initiative to contractors attending the Phoenix chapter of the minority contractors annual dinner Friday night.

Dan Villa Jr., president of Glendale-based Villa Inc., said filling one job can sometimes take four months, and generally he gets only one or two viable candidates. Five years ago, he could fill a job within 30 days and have four or five good candidates.

"The labor void just keeps getting larger and larger," he said.

In some cases, companies will bid up wages to pull workers from competitors. Sometimes they lose revenues because they lack the workers to take on new jobs.

"I've turned down quite a bit of work," Pruitt said. "I don't like turning down work, but good contractors don't want to go out and not perform."