I'm in Maricopa County, Arizona, where a lot of people
have been moving to recently, including construction companies and projects.
In fact, the Arizona Office of Economic Opportunity says there
will be almost 40,000 new jobs in construction by 2031.
One company in town is making sure there will be
enough workers to fill those positions.
Austin McCabe needed a high school diploma and driver's license.
This led him to his current job in construction.
I used to be an electrician for about a year.
I ended up really enjoying the work, so I say,
hey, I want to learn to work on my hands.
I still needed my high school diploma at the time
and I found out about Job Corps, which offers both.
They give you training, gets you finish your high school
diploma and they get you your driver's license.
But I still need it.
At the time, McCabe completed a new partnership program between
Job Corps and DPR Construction that gives people hands on
experience in the industry.
I was still part of Job Corps while I was
while I first joined DPR, a six week like onboarding,
afterwards DPR, they liked what I was doing when I
worked there so they hired me on full time.
Maricopa County, where Phoenix is, was the 4th largest growing
county in the nation last year.
It's not just a population growth, but also a construction
boom.
We have been the recipient of a lot of new
companies coming into town that are focused on building a
new industry here.
We've been called the Electric Valley.
You know all of the chip manufacturing that's come into
town and the supply chain that comes with it.
In 2023, the Phoenix metro area had one of the
highest employment rates in the construction industry.
Nationally, employment increased by more than 250,000 workers since last
year, but the industry still needs more.
With all of the work in the Valley, we are
continuing to connect and partner with organizations that support workforce
development has been a great opportunity for us to introduce
people to the trades, help them see that construction is
a career.
Since the program launched late last year, DPR Construction and
Job Corps are launching their third cohort of the next
class of construction workers in Maricopa County, Arizona.
Sunnyside.
Fox News.