Partnering for the Future of the Roofing Industry

By Amie L. Grant, Weatherproofing Technologies, Inc.

Tremco and WTI have partnered with SkillsUSA to ensure America has a future skilled workforce.

You have likely been part of conversations about the labor shortage that so many companies are facing in our industry.  It can impact your bottom line if you have to delay work and it can certainly affect morale if your employees are stretched thin or your company is experiencing high turnover.  These issues are not going away in the foreseeable future, so it is time to get creative about attracting qualified workers to our industry and showing them that roofing can be a career – not just a summer job.

According to projections from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the roofing industry is expected to grow at a rate of 12% during the period of 2018-2028.  That is in comparison to 10% for construction trades overall and 5% for all occupations.  On CareerBuilder, the job sector most in demand in 2019 was skilled labor. 

U.S.News projects that 55 million jobs will become available in the next several years.  Of those, 31 million positions will be open due to the retirement of baby boomers.  According to Forbes, the skilled trades are impacted more by retiring workers than other fields: in a labor market analysis by data company Emsi, 53% of skilled trades workers in the U.S. were between the ages of 55-64, compared to 15.5% of jobs across the overall labor force that were held by those aged 55-64.

A recent survey of parents sponsored by the National Center for Construction Education & Research, found that, while 71% of respondents would show some sort of support if their child chose a career of construction, 70% would be unlikely to actually advise their child to choose the skilled trades.

So, we’ve got a growing number of jobs to fill, a large portion of skilled laborers retiring, and negative stigmas associated with skilled trades that prevent parents from suggesting us to their kids.  Yikes!  If we want our industry to thrive, it is on us to advocate for career paths in roofing to the next generation (and their parents!).  Advocacy is just one of the reasons that Tremco /WTI have become a SkillsUSA Official Business Partner.

If you aren’t familiar with SkillsUSA, it is a national partnership of students, teachers, and industry working together to ensure America has a skilled workforce.  It serves middle school, high school, and college/postsecondary students preparing for careers in trade, technical, and skilled service occupations.  SkillsUSA has over 427,000 members in over 19,000 classrooms in 53 state and territorial associations.

SkillsUSA students learn not only technical skills in over one hundred different career areas but also workplace skills (communication, teamwork, leadership) and personal skills (integrity, work ethic, professionalism, flexibility). By partnering with SkillsUSA, we have a national platform to reach a talented, well-rounded labor force and get them excited about roofing! 

Last year, I had the pleasure of spending a day at the 2019 National Leadership Skills Conference in Louisville.  Students at this yearly event are truly the best of the best in their fields, having won local and state competitions before being eligible to compete at the national level.  This event included 6,500 students in 105 different events.  Walking the floor (which is the equivalent of 20 football fields), I saw competition areas from plumbing, welding, and robotics, to cosmetology, screen-printing, and crime scene investigation.  It is just massive, and to say the work being done by these students is impressive is an understatement.  I am excited to go back this year – and hopefully, see a roofing competition in the near future!

Our hope with this partnership is to advocate not just for Tremco/WTI, but for roofing as a whole.  We can all play a part in changing perceptions about our trade.  As you all know, our industry is moving fast, embracing technology like never before – and creating even more career opportunities as a result.  So many of us have stories about how a job in roofing became a fulfilling, lucrative career in roofing.  Sharing your story is so important – especially as we look to younger generations to be the future of our industry!

WTI leads with safety and we care about the whole technician.  If you are interested in checking out our employment opportunities and competitive benefits, click here to see our active job postings.