A lack of construction workers breathes life into high school shop class
Diego Reyes is just 15 years old, but he’s already training for a job in the booming construction industry.
Texas is running out of workers, especially construction workers. And Diego knows it.
“The younger you start, the better you get at something,” said Diego, a sophomore at Skyline High School who takes shop class.
The Texas unemployment rate stood at 3.7 percent for November, matching the national rate. That’s the lowest Texas rate since record-keeping began more than four decades ago. In the Dallas-Fort Worth area, it’s 3.2 percent. In 12 U.S. states, unemployment is at 3 percent or lower.
America needs workers, and it’s an open secret where many who labor in the construction industry can be found: Plenty of immigrants without proper work permits are building and rebuilding the state and the nation.
But President Donald Trump’s immigration crackdown has hit building trades hard. And Congress has not passed any legalization program for unauthorized foreign workers or expanded existing visa programs.
The job crunch in the Dallas-Fort Worth area means a shortage of 20,000 to 30,000 construction workers, said Phil Crone, an executive officer at the Dallas Builders Association.
That’s why they’re bolstering shop classes in high schools and community colleges to attract more nativeborn workers and legal immigrants to the construction trades.
“We are telling them success isn’t defined by getting a four-year degree right out of high school,” Crone said. “The construction trades are a great way to make a career here. We are trying to turn the tide.”
So is Doug Palmer, the shop class instructor at Skyline. A few years ago, Palmer was hired to bring back shop class. He had to build up tools, from pliers to plywood, Allen wrenches to miter saws.
Palmer was in semi-retirement, working as a small subcontractor. He’d run similar shop classes for years at a Carrollton High School, where students built full-size houses. Building a program from scratch appealed to him.
Realistic experiences for his students are prized. For motivation, Palmer regularly brings in builders to speak. A big favorite among his many bilingual students was a home builder who said he paid $2 to $3 more an hour for a good worker who could speak both English and Spanish.
Inside shop class, where each tool pops or buzzes with its special sound, students weld tables while wearing safety masks. Jon Estrada, a sophomore, picks up a staple gun do a little noisy roofing for a birdhouse. Dos Equis bottle caps gets repurposed as shingles. It takes 180 caps for a roof.
“Before you do anything, you have to plan it out. In the real world, if you don’t have everything planned out, you lose profit,” Jon said.
Outside, students frame a roof for a shed using fragrant pine wood.
“Their math skills have to be up there to figure this out,” Palmer said.
At Dallas ISD, trustee Miguel Solis says school districts need to make clear-eyed assessments about job market needs. Robots aren’t going to fix your plumbing, Solis said.
“People may not see it as a feasible career because it was never presented to them,” the trustee said.
“There will always be room for the traditional trades, things that robots will never do.”
And then there is the pay. Solis, who is now 32, said his younger brother started out in construction in the refinery business when Solis was making his way through college and, later, graduate school at Harvard. His younger brother outperformed him in pay for many years, he said.
The immigration crackdown is a big reason to get more U.S. citizens and those with proper work permits into construction.
In Texas in 2016, the latest year for which data was available, unauthorized immigrant workers made up 29 percent of all workers in construction occupations, said Jeff Passel, senior demographer at the Pew Research Center. That’s nearly twice the number in the nation as a whole.
Crone of the Dallas Builders Association says his organization supports a guest worker program for construction jobs. But they’ve hit a wall. “We have been trying to talk about a program that makes sense but, given the tone of enforcement, it’s hard,” Crone said.