I read these two articles today in the WSJ and I’m going to keep them very handy because the next time I get into it with some JackArse that says the funding for trade programs at the schools could be put to better use I’ll include a copy of these articles with my bill, along with an extra little markup and donate it to my local high school trade program so they can buy some tools. I did a job for one Arsehole last year who complained to me about how hard it was to find someone to come do work for him. A few months later I saw an opinion in my local rag from the same guy writing in advocating cutting trade program funding from our local school budget so the thespian club could better afford their costumes. <!—-> <!—-><!—->
Sorry for the vent, here are the articles…<!—-> <!—->
Steel homemakers are looking to increase their market share with Katrina rebuilding. Surprisingly, or maybe not, builders using steel are having a hard time finding skilled steel workers so they are importing skilled steel labor (engineers and laborers) from China. <!—-> <!—->
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB115672059938546858.html?mod=hps_us_editors_picks <!—-><!—->
Local officials in the Gulf are expecting a huge, unprecedented construction boom however the lack of skilled labor (among other things) is really hurting the efforts to get things started. It is estimated that there is a demand for an additional 50,000 skilled construction workers. Various agencies are looking to start up some training programs soon to immediately fill 2,500 entry level construction positions with an expectation to be able to train 20,000 people by 2009. <!—-> <!—->
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB115672218906046877.html?mod=hps_us_editors_picks <!—-><!—->
Replies
They have been closing even the basic shop classes for years at the "regular" grade and high schools. The dummies walking out the front door after 4 years don't even know how to hold a screwdriver but they sure can complain about paying the invoice to have work done on their $$$ homes.
I took mandatory shop class in grade school. No complaints. Went onto trade school (machine shop) but had to go through plumbing, elect, carp, and yup, a mandatory home ed class with cooking. Bailed out of my chosen trade in 87 to go drive a truck. Got sick of being indoors. My parents were heart broken as I was very good at what I did.
Thankfully my dad taught me a lot of skills prior to trade school. Not too many dads these days can teach their kids any of these skills.
No tears from me. I'm glad it's biting them in the butt. Same thing is going to happen with all of the "off shore" manufacturing.
Hey WingNut - the pages you linked are only for subscribers. Any chance you could copy and paste them into a post?
Buic
Sorry about that Buic, <!----><!----><!---->
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Here’s the article that comments on the shortage of skilled labor…<!----><!---->
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Razing Hopes and Fears<!----><!---->
By <!----><!----><!---->CHAD<!----><!----> TERHUNEAugust 28, 2006; Page B1<!----><!---->
NEW ORLEANS -- Mera Bercy -- fed up with the stench and the rats and the roaches from the abandoned house next door to her home in the flood-battered Gentilly neighborhood -- hopes the city of New Orleans keeps its word.<!----><!---->
Officials have promised that beginning tomorrow, the one-year anniversary of Hurricane Katrina's landfall here, they would begin moving to demolish buildings whose owners haven't at least gutted them and cleaned up their lots.<!----><!---->
"Their rats and roaches are coming into my home with three small children," complains the 33-year-old Ms. Bercy, who gutted her home in November and is living in a small travel trailer in her front yard as she slowly repairs her single-story brick house. "Obviously the owner next door has moved on. But don't punish me. If they say Aug. 29, make it stick."<!----><!---->
Demolitions won't begin for a few weeks or even months. But New Orleans and neighboring St. Bernard Parish -- two of the hardest-hit areas -- have set the deadline to force tens of thousands of property owners to deal with abandoned, blighted structures that still litter the landscape here and perhaps kick start the area's stagnant recovery. In a vote Friday, the New Orleans City Council stuck to the deadline but spelled out that homeowners will have several weeks to comply with or challenge warning letters or seek a "hardship exemption."<!----><!---->
Katrina severely damaged more than 125,000 homes in New Orleans and St. Bernard parishes alone, and it is estimated only about 30% to 50% of residents have returned. Many homeowners don't have the money to rebuild as disputes over denied insurance claims drag on, and an acute shortage of workers and construction materials is crimping efforts and raising costs. Government red tape and property owners' concerns that another devastating storm might wreck any repairs have also bogged down work. Katrina survivors are watching Tropical Storm Ernesto closely as it churns toward the <!---->Gulf of Mexico<!---->.<!----><!---->
The demolition plan has become a flashpoint, pitting neighbor against neighbor in many cases and signaling an important shift among local leaders to focus their efforts and priorities on those who have already returned versus those who may never come back. After the local government demolishes or guts a house, officials will place a lien on the property to force the owners to repay the cost of the work.<!----><!---->
"People shouldn't have to live in disgusting neighborhoods with boarded-up homes, uncut grass and debris in the yard," says Joey DiFatta, a St. Bernard Parish Council member. Oliver Thomas, the New Orleans City Council president, agrees. He says the time has come to "focus on the people who've returned so they're not discouraged and leave."<!----><!---->
Working in favor of the rebuilding effort is that $7.5 billion in federal aid has started flowing to <!----><!---->Louisiana<!----><!----> homeowners in the disaster zone. Last week, the Louisiana Recovery Authority started issuing grants for as much as $150,000 to help cover uninsured losses. A similar $3 billion program is under way in <!----><!---->Mississippi<!----><!---->.<!----><!---->
Local officials expect that to trigger an unprecedented construction boom -- with thousands of renovations simultaneously under way across hundreds of miles of southern <!---->Louisiana<!----> and <!----><!---->Mississippi<!----><!---->. Of course, that will exacerbate the labor shortage even more. Some experts estimate more than 50,000 additional workers are needed in <!---->Louisiana<!----> and <!----><!---->Mississippi<!----><!---->. Already signs begging for laborers are interspersed among thousands of placards plastering the <!----><!---->New Orleans<!----><!----> area to advertise wallboard removal, mold fumigation and demolition.<!----><!---->
To fill the gap, construction companies are offering pay incentives to retain employees, and business groups are pushing for training programs and improved housing options. The Business Roundtable, a Washington D.C.-based association of 160 CEOs at leading companies, has teamed up with state and federal labor officials to launch training efforts in <!---->Baton Rouge<!---->, <!---->La.<!---->, and <!----><!---->Jackson<!----><!---->, Miss. The group has a goal of recruiting and training 2,500 entry-level construction workers this year and 20,000 by 2009. The Business Roundtable has put $5 million into the program and state and federal officials have invested more than $20 million toward this initiative and other worker training.<!----><!---->
Stephanie Foster, 31, started the four-week training course at <!----><!---->Baton Rouge<!----> <!---->Community College<!----><!----> earlier this month. She hopes to earn more than $20 an hour in welding or carpentry -- up from the $8 an hour she made previously as a fast-food cook and cleaning houses. "We have to rebuild to get our people back. If we don't do it ourselves, no one will," she says. Billboards and radio ads promoting the program began airing this month, and nearly 200 participants have finished the program and taken jobs at local builders and bigger companies such as Shaw Group Inc. and Bechtel Group Inc.<!----><!---->
The billions for rebuilding "mean nothing if we don't have the hands on the ground," says Tim Johnson, a <!----><!---->Baton Rouge<!----><!----> consultant organizing the training. "There will be no rebuilding without the craftspeople."<!----><!---->
In St. Bernard Parish, the largely blue-collar community east of <!----><!---->New Orleans<!----><!----> inundated with Katrina floodwaters, Bill and Kathie Lind have invested roughly $150,000 to fix up their home and another rental property they own. Their neighbors have done very little.<!----><!---->
Next door on <!----><!---->Jupiter Street<!----><!----> in <!---->Chalmette<!----> one home still hasn't been gutted and portions of the roof are collapsing. The Linds' neighbor on the other side recently tore out the interior of his house and a chest-high pile of debris fills the front yard. "Before they set the deadline no one was doing anything," says Mr. Lind, his T-shirt drenched in sweat after clearing weeds in his yard in 95-degree heat. "The deadline is the only thing that will save the parish."<!----><!---->
Many homeowners, though, remain skeptical of any government rebuilding effort given the slow, bureaucratic response thus far to Katrina. They also fear the government will demolish structures that are salvageable -- or stick them with excessive liens on their property.<!----><!---->
Others are openly hostile. The looming deadline brought out Ray Berger, a 47-year-old motel owner, to clean up his mother-in-law's house on <!----><!---->Florida Avenue<!----><!---->, not far from Ms. Bercy's Gentilly home. "It's a shame it's a year later, and you don't see any improvement," Mr. Berger said. "But how can we get anything done when we're still battling the insurance companies? If they tear down this house, they will catch a bullet."<!----><!---->
Civil-rights groups in <!----><!---->New Orleans<!----><!----> have threatened a legal effort to block the city demolition program. <!----><!---->New Orleans<!----><!----> already has exempted low-income areas such as the Lower Ninth Ward. Property owners in New Orleans can also comply with the deadline by getting on a waiting list for free gutting services offered by some nonprofit groups -- a wait currently running at four to six months as the groups struggle to recruit enough volunteers to meet the enormous demand. It often takes a team of 10 volunteers two to three days to gut one home.<!----><!---->
St. Bernard will give property owners 30 days notice before starting demolition. Homes that are structurally sound will only be gutted, officials say.<!----><!---->
Joseph and Helen Moore heard about the demolition deadline in St. Bernard Parish from their daughter-in-law and rushed back earlier this month from their new home in <!---->Broken Arrow<!---->, <!---->Okla.<!---->, to install new doors and windows on their damaged <!---->Chalmette<!----> house -- one recommended way to get off the demolition list. They intend to sell the house and stay in <!---->Oklahoma<!----> because they don't consider <!----><!---->Louisiana<!----><!----> safe from future storms. "Why should we put windows and doors on to make it presentable? They will just be broken out later," said Ms. Moore, a 62-year-old Wal-Mart employee.<!----><!---->
Last month, the parish posted a list online of more than 7,000 residential and commercial properties it considered "blighted" out of 27,000 pre-Katrina structures. That number has dwindled to about 4,100 as property owners documented work they'd undertaken.<!----><!---->
"Every day we have our screamers and criers," said Gina Hayes, director of the Department of Community Development in St. Bernard Parish. But "our goal is to clean up this area."<!----><!---->
Buic, here’s the article on the how steel manufactures are looking to take some market share away from the traditional stick builders but are having problems finding skilled steel workers.<!----><!----><!---->
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<!----><!----><!---->Mississippi<!----> <!---->Town<!----><!---->Becomes Steel's City<!----><!---->
By PAUL GLADERAugust 28, 2006; Page B1<!----><!---->
<!----><!---->LONG BEACH<!---->, <!---->Miss.<!----><!----> -- Roger Glennon spends his days in a trailer next to the mayor's office here working on plans to rebuild the town hall complex, library, police station and recreation center devastated a year ago by Hurricane Katrina.<!----><!---->
The 65-year-old engineer doesn't work for the city, or a local contractor or architect. Instead, he and four other engineers are being paid by Mittal Steel Co., of the <!----><!---->Netherlands<!----><!---->, the world's largest steelmaker and his former employer. Out of the piles of debris stacked high with wood, Mittal and the rest of the steel industry see an opportunity.<!----><!---->
They have adopted <!---->Long Beach<!---->, a small <!----><!---->Gulf<!----> <!---->Coast<!----><!----> city of graceful, mostly wooden homes, where about half of the 6,000 structures were damaged by Katrina.<!----><!---->
"Here was a city that was small and not on anybody's radar screen early on," says Larry Williams, executive director for The Steel Framing Alliance, which is affiliated with the American Iron and Steel Institute.<!----><!---->
Along with essentially donating the work of five engineers to help local contractors learn to work with steel, Mittal set up a $1 million grant for city rebuilding projects and has helped pay for the annual Christmas party, the yearbook at the local high school, and renovations at the Little League baseball field.<!----><!---->
"I took my hard hat and mill shoes along and was ready to dig in," Mr. Glennon says, noting that after he arrived in January the work turned out to be managing contracts and working through bureaucracy of state and federal building rules and disaster funding.<!----><!---->
In addition to Mittal's efforts, Mr. Williams's group announced in February that it was pooling $1.1 million from 12 steel companies to launch the Gulf Coast Steel Initiative, a marketing effort to gain more steel-framed buildings in the Gulf Coast region in general and Long Beach in particular, where it is heading up plans to rebuild the community recreation center and senior citizens home, mostly out of steel.<!----><!---->
A smaller, but similar marketing effort was launched after Hurricane Andrew struck Florida in 1992 and was credited with boosting steel's market share of home frames to 7% from 1%, with even higher percentages in certain cities such as Orlando. That effort, and the current one, tout steel as stronger and more disaster-resistant than traditional wood framing, which has 78.5% of the market share nationwide.<!----><!---->
Concrete makers are also trying to make inroads in the home-construction market at the expense of wood, whose industry trade group is vigorously protecting its market share. The Washington D.C.-based American Forest & Paper Association and its American Wood Council defends the durability of wood-framed buildings. "We are entirely confidant that wood-framed structures, properly constructed, are able to withstand the wind-loads prescribed by the building code," says Ken Bland, director of codes and standards for the organization.<!----><!---->
But steelmakers believe natural disasters like Katrina help their cause. General Steel Corp., based in <!----><!---->Lakewood<!---->, <!---->Colo.<!----><!---->, advertises its pre-engineered building kits on a local radio station, saying their steel-based garages and commercial structures can withstand high winds. "You have to have a catastrophic event to get people out of traditional building methods," said Steve Bezner, a partner in Light Gauge Solutions of Arlington, Texas, and president of the <!---->Texas<!----> branch of the steel-framing alliance, while driving along the beachfront of <!----><!---->Long Beach<!----><!---->. "We think we can take steel building up a few notches."<!----><!---->
The gains won't come easily. Steel is expensive. It costs anywhere from 15% to 40% more to frame or roof a house in steel or concrete rather than in traditional wood framing or asphalt roofing. To help offset the higher costs, the steel coalition is lobbying insurance companies and commissions for preferential insurance rates for homeowners who have steel-framed houses.<!----><!---->
But cost isn't the only issue. Most home builders were trained to use wood and don't know how to use other materials. Indeed, several wood framers in the region say they would try steel framing if they could get skilled workers. Wood frames require nails and hammers. Steel frames require screws and drills. "We've looked at steel or modular but we can't get the people for crews," said Ronnie Wirth, a home builder in <!----><!---->New Orleans<!----><!---->.<!----><!---->
Planetta Custom Homes in <!---->Slidell<!---->, <!---->La.<!---->, is finalizing an agreement with <!---->China<!---->'s Zhongfu Group to build and distribute 600 prefabricated steel houses in <!---->Long Beach<!----> and other <!----><!---->Gulf<!----> <!---->Coast<!----><!----> towns. Vic Planetta says American builders aren't as experienced working with steel and so he wants to bring Chinese engineers and workers to the <!----><!---->U.S.<!----><!----> to work alongside his own subcontractors. He expects the first steel houses to be built in six months. The Chinese firm, partially government owned, says the homes will be able to withstand winds of 150 miles per hour and will have several different designs ranging in size from 1,250 to 3,000 square feet and priced between $130,000 and $500,000.<!----><!---->
"We are open to whatever," said Long Beach Mayor Billy Skellie, who says as long as steel home designs meet building codes, he is willing to "tweak" city ordinances a bit to allow for more steel-intensive housing.<!----><!---->
Steel-stud framing is expected to account for 1.0% of building materials used in the <!----><!---->U.S.<!----><!----> in 2006, up from 0.8% in 2003. Concrete will account for 18.5% in 2006, up from 16.1% in 2003. A chart that accompanied this article about steel companies' efforts to rebuild the <!----><!---->Gulf<!----> <!---->Coast<!----><!----> region damaged by Hurricane Katrina mistakenly reversed the figures for these building materials.<!----><!----><!--
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Thanks for getting them up...Buic