By Mark Remillard | KTAR
As the housing and construction industries continue to recover, there is a shortage of labor in Arizona.
Rebekah Morris, publisher of Arizona Builder’s Exchange, a construction trade magazine, said many jobs left when the recession hit and they haven’t come back.
“The recession just killed us, as an industry it killed construction,” she said. “Those workers had to do something … you don’t put your life on hold for 5 years, you have to find something (so) they found employment either out of state and stayed in the industry or they left the industry.”
Morris said the shortage is also due to cultural attitudes toward the industry.
“We’re not telling our kids, our high school kids and our junior high kids it’s OK if you don’t want to go to college, you can still make a decent living if you go get a skill,” she said. “Culturally, we’re telling them, ‘you have to go to college, you have to go be a white-collar professional.'”
