Monday, May 16, 2005 | 11:06 a.m.
One might call the Las Vegas Valley's construction industry an employee's market.
It took DeShante Sherman, of Ontario, Calif., only four days to find a job in the Las Vegas Valley's bustling construction industry.
After moving here three weeks ago Sherman, 30, was able to land a job as an entry-level engineering technician with engineering firm Geotechnical & Environmental Services Inc., a job that requires no experience because the company is offering paid training.
He said with his experience in construction masonry work he's not walking into the job completely cold. However, he said he never would have considered the position if the company wasn't offering to train workers.
"Actually it wasn't the field I wanted to work in but it's a real interesting field and it has a lot of opportunities for advancement and I chose to pursue it," Sherman said. "I know exactly what they're doing, but I never thought about pursuing what they're doing."
The job includes testing asphalt, concrete, masonry and soil to determine if a particular site and the materials are suitable for construction. The workers also test to determine whether the building is being built in accordance with the architectural specifications and if it adheres to the laws of a particular municipality.
"Everything that is usually built is tested in some way, " Greg DeSart, president of GES, said.
Sherman said since graduating from Westwood College in Upland, Calif., a year and a half ago with an associate's degree in computer science, he hasn't been able to find a job in that field.
"Well, the jobs are really hard to find in California," Sherman said. "I was trying to get out of the construction field. I'd been sending resumes for the last year and a half. I got no responses. Then the cost of living is really high. There's more opportunities here."
It may be a good market for workers, but it's every company for itself when it comes to finding qualified employees, DeSart said.
He said GES, which has about 50 employees, has resorted to training people with no experience because of the difficulty in finding workers who are trained and have the various certifications needed in the various jurisdictions the company performs work in.
"What we decided to do is we put an ad in the paper that said, 'Entry-level positions, will train,"' DeSart said. "Probably 50 (applied). Before that we would run an ad for a certified inspector every other week. We would get one resume a month."
DeSart said Sherman is one of six entry-level engineering technicians and two entry level driller's assistants the company hired at the beginning of May at $10 an hour. He said the company plans to hire four more entry-level engineering technicians in June and one or two driller's assistants.
The workers will train exclusively for three months and then will receive on-the-job training. He said as the workers earn certifications they'll also earn raises.
"We're saying, 'We're going to give you a career.' They don't have to have an education," DeSart said. "What I told them is in five years they could be doubling their salary."
An experienced person with the needed certifications in the same position can command between $20 and $30 an hour, DeSart said.
As the Las Vegas Valley's construction industry has gained 15,500 new jobs at a growth rate of 19.2 percent between March of this year and last, DeSart is one of many companies in the construction industry that are dealing with what is considered an acute shortage of workers.
"We've gone through growth cycles before, but the growth of the construction growth cycle is mind-boggling with 20 percent," Jim Shabi, an economist with the Nevada Department of Employment, Training & Rehabilitation, said. "I just don't think anybody in their right mind would forecast growth by 20 percent. We're amazed. We keep upping our forecast and reality keeps beating our forecast."
With all of that growth, Steve Holloway, executive vice president of the Associated General Contractors Las Vegas Chapter, said the shortage is driving wages higher. The median wage for construction and extraction occupations is $18.21, according to DETR.
"The only way you can combat it is to pay higher wages and either steal those workers or supervisors or engineers from one of your competitors or recruit them from outside Southern Nevada," Holloway said. "The problem with bringing them here (is) the cost of housing is not allowing a lot of companies to do that. I've spoken to several companies where they've hired an estimator from Chicago, St. Louis or Phoenix and brought them here for the interview and then the worker looked around and couldn't find a home he could get into and left and went back to where he came from."
He said before home prices were rising, workers were coming from areas of the country where the economy was more depressed than that of Southern Nevada's. He said now that construction has picked up across the country there are less people willing to move here.
Holloway said the labor shortage is being felt among both union and non-union contractors.
But Pat Schlosser, vice president and Southern Nevada area manager for union contractor Clark & Sullivan Constructors Inc., said so far the company hasn't experienced any difficulties. However, he said the company is only doing the amount of work it can handle.
"We have pulled back on our horns in performing work," Schlosser said. "If somebody's out there being a glutton for work trying to do everything he can, he's going to find himself in a real bad corner. I always like the phrase, 'It's like standing at a buffet, you don't want to bloat yourself."'
Jim Sala, director of organizing for the Southwest Regional Council of Carpenters, said the union has seen major growth among its ranks. He said membership in the union's three Southern Nevada unions is reaching 8,000 and there are currently 1,259 apprentices involved in the union's four-year training program.
"We have in the last four years tripled the number of apprentices we have in our program," Sala said. "We've grown quite a bit. We've also increased our minority participation."
Sala said although there is a tremendous amount of growth the union is able to meet that growth because of its aggressive organizing.
"It certainly is a challenge to get qualified people," Sala said. "We recruit people all the time; we've expanded our training program and our facilities. We're out at job sites every day. We organize employers, we bring in workers we have people coming into the hall everyday."
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