Pre-Apprenticeship Programs Aim to Launch Construction Careers

Courtesy of ANEW

Beginning a career in the construction industry can be a difficult and tricky process to wade through. People in the Seattle, Washington area are getting some help in through ANEW, a non-profit organization that offers pre-apprenticeship training programs open to those looking to kick-off their construction careers.

“I was looking for more of a long-term career path, [I had] kind of been doing restaurant jobs and other odd jobs and stuff like that, and this program kind of gives the opportunity to find a stable living wage,” Dustin Bradshaw, a 24-year-old who recently participated in one of ANEW’s programs, told K5 News in Seattle.

ANEW offers two programs in the Seattle area, the Trades Rotation Program (TRP) and the Pre-Apprenticeship and Construction Education (PACE) program. Both are designed to educate and train participants in the essential skills they will need to be accepted into an apprenticeship.

By the end of these programs, graduates will be OSHA10, Flagging, Forklift and CPR/First Aid certified. Participants visit different jobsites and apprenticeship trades in order to get a better idea of what specific area in the construction industry they want to pursue. There are also opportunities for professional development like resume-building workshops and mock interviews.

As efforts are made at a nationwide level to expand apprenticeship programs and increase the pool of skilled laborers, programs like TRP and PACE provide an excellent opportunity for people to bridge the gap between working temporary jobs and find an apprenticeship that will lead to a job in construction that can support a family.

“A lot of times we go to high school and we’re told, ‘Go to college! Go to college!’ and we don’t even know what the pathways are in construction,” Karen Dove, ANEW executive director, said to K5 News. “This gives them the opportunity to see what those pathways are and to find something that they’re going to love doing.”

Expect to see more programs like PACE and TRP pop up in more areas as the nationwide skilled labor shortage continues to grow.

“We trained 180 people [last year] and we could probably do double that and still not meet the needs of the industry right now,” Dove said to K5 News.

To find out what a veteran landscaper wishes he would have known before starting his career in the trains, click here.