[H]ungry for workers, trade associations and construction companies have long recruited high school students to technical schools and programs.
Now the companies want to help convince their parents that they might be suited for a job in the trades after high school.
“I think a lot of kids have this dream about their kids going to college,” said Christine Lundie, who has worked at South Burlington High School for 15 years. Lundie is the school’s career development center coordinator. “People have ignored the opportunities through the trades, which kind of blows my mind. Have you paid a plumber lately?”
The Vermont Associated General Contractors (AGC) is this month releasing educational materials that students can use to show skeptical parents that an apprenticeship or technical education will lead to work that pays well, offers variety, and promises advancement.
The materials offer parents’ hypothetical objections such as “You’re smart. Construction is for people who don’t do well in school,” and serve up possible responses such as:
“Construction trades require strong math and science skills, as well as critical thinking and problem-solving skills.
“I may take on new skills and responsibilities like project management, people management and business management, offering opportunities for ongoing training and new experiences.
“It’s a career that requires lifelong learning.”
The AGC materials present a compelling argument about pay. The Vermont AGC says that Vermont construction workers earn an average $61,762 annually, compared to an average wage of $47,359 for all other industries. To the parental statement: “Construction jobs don’t pay well,” the AGC suggests students parry with:
“I’ll get paid well from day one and have little to no debt … my wage will increase each year until I’m certified.
“My pay continues to increase with my experience throughout my career.
“My pay can be on par with the salary of an accountant, engineer or many other traditional university-degreed careers.”
Another reason why it’s important to consider the trades is the high cost of a liberal arts degree, said Michael Metz, who founded Generator Makerspace in Burlington. Metz said college debt suppresses entrepreneurship.
“It’s an incredibly horrible burden when you are 21 years old and have $100,000 debt,” Metz said. “It can affect 30 years of your life. It can affect your risk-taking. Early-stage entrepreneurs, many of them get out of college and say, ‘I can’t take this risk, I can’t go on to a venture that doesn’t allow me to pay my debt.’”
Matt Musgrave, who leads government relations for the Vermont AGC, said he thinks many parents don’t know anyone who works in the trades and haven’t thought of them as an option.
“Unless it’s a household that was a trades household, that’s the real challenge,” he said. “Because they can’t see why their son or daughter would want to go into the trades if they had been someone who works in an office or a doctor or a lawyer, that’s kind of that missing link.”
Parents also might not be aware that technical education has advanced since the days when vocational school prepared the children of the poor for one job. Nowadays, many technical and career programs offer credentials and even college credits, said Mary Anne Sheahan, executive director of the Vermont Talent Pipeline, an industry-led program created to help get companies the workers they need.
“There is a disconnect between what parents know is available and what they remember from when they went to school,” said Sheahan. “It’s different now. It’s career and technical education.”
High school counselors and industry leaders say many high schools and the state’s technical centers are doing an excellent job in connecting students to the trades. Some high schools offer internship programs that place students in companies. Most policymakers in this area say schools need to start introducing career information to students at least by fifth grade.
Sheahan would like to see more internships. Many young students don’t know what the options are, and don’t yet know what kind of work they would enjoy, she said.
“Other states have a requirement that by the time you get through eighth grade you have to have shadowed four careers,” she said. “What if we did something like that?”
Another obstacle, Sheahan said, is that high school counselors and others often don’t have an incentive to usher kids in that direction.
“A big part of that is when a student leaves the regular system and goes to the tech center, the dollars that flow to that school system actually follow the student,” she said. “How hard are you going to work on that if you know $18k is going to leave your school?”
Metz, who earned an MBA and worked in private business for most of his career, said he himself found it difficult to conceive of an alternative path for his children, even though he now leads an organization that provides non-academic routes to training and work.
“I have been brainwashed like everyone else, and I probably brainwashed my kids,” he said. “My son who hates school refused to go back to graduate school and he made it work. So did a bunch of other people. Look at Google, look at some of these companies; these founders didn’t complete college.”
The AGC says earnings for construction workers jumped 6 percent in 2015, nearly double the average pay increase nationally. And it says it’s not uncommon for very experienced plumbers to earn in the six figures.The Vermont group is spending several thousand dollars on its campaign to change parents’ minds. It’s modeled after one created by their Alabama counterpart.
“A significant amount of time, money and effort will be put into this, because it really is a challenge,” said Musgrave. “If we don’t get those young people working here in Vermont, and the older people who are changing careers, as a state we’re going to have to outsource and it’s going to get more expensive for our roads and highways.”
When it comes to career information, teenagers really do listen to their parents, said Sheahan.
“When you talk to the schools, they are always saying, ‘When you get the parents onboard, the students will follow,’” she said.
