Growth, training program bring opportunities

Graduation ceremonies around the local school district last week marked the culmination of 12 years of education for the hundreds of students who received diplomas.

Many students, undoubtedly, already have their next steps mapped out. Some will go on to college, some will join the military, some will go to work. Others will bide their time while they figure out exactly what it is they'd like to do next.

Graduates who have grown up in the Mat-Su Borough have seen many changes over the course of their lives. The last few years, in particular, have seen unprecedented development that has made the region one of the fastest growing in the country.

All that growth means construction. From roads to housing to commercial facilities, we see it all around us. And all that construction means jobs.

Fortunately for prospective workers, there are more jobs than there are people to fill them, according to the Alaska chapter of the Associated General Contractors of America (AGC). Mat-Su residents, just graduated or otherwise, are especially well-positioned to benefit from those jobs, thanks to the conjunction of all that construction and a new federally funded job-training program.

Putting to use federal grant money supplied by the Department of Labor under the president's High-Growth Job Training Initiative, the AGC and the local school district are working together to establish a construction career academy. The academy, which will begin low-scale operation at Wasilla High School in the fall before moving into a new facility in Palmer in 2007, will provide specialized skills demanded by employers to ensure that workers have the right skills for the available jobs.

This is good news for both the construction industry and workers, especially new grads who are unsure about what sort of career/vocational path to follow. The economic benefit to workers should be particularly enticing.

According to the AGC, a high school graduate who spends the next four years in a carpentry apprenticeship, for example, will earn $191,230 in real income and benefits. After that time and training, the carpenter would earn an average of $46,070 a year in wages and another $19,975 in benefits.

Contrast that with the case of a UAA student. After four years, the student will have paid about $14,600 and be set up for an average annual salary of $38,449, minus student loan payments.

This is not to diminish a college education, the value of which transcends dollars and cents. But given the amount of students who go on to college without any real direction simply because it is the thing to do, the numbers are sobering.

Construction jobs in general are the third highest paying statewide. Workers earn 33 percent more than the state's average non-construction worker, according to the AGC.

The AGC has long stated the need for more construction workers. If Alaska doesn't start training its own, jobs will go unfilled, or out-of-state workers will be brought in to fill them. With the growth trend projected to continue into the foreseeable future, the soon-to-be open construction career academy brings great opportunity for the borough and its residents.