Hiring headache: $25B in mobility projects will require 10,000 new workers every year through 2040

With $25 billion in infrastructure and mobility projects on tap over the next two decades, the Austin area will have 10,000 new jobs in those sectors per year for the next 17 years. That total is one of the findings of an analysis shared last week with local political and business leaders during a summit on how to address the area’s mobility and infrastructure needs.

The report from Austin-based consulting group CivicSol was one of the primary points of discussion during last week’s Moving Forward summit that was focused mainly on the workforce development needs for the many projects about to launch in Austin. That list is topped by the expansion of Interstate 35, Austin’s light rail construction and the expansion of Austin-Bergstrom International Airport.

Another finding of the report is that the current hiring pace for relevant sectors would result in an annual shortage of 4,000 unfilled jobs. With women traditionally representing only 14 percent of hirings for mobility and infrastructure jobs, closing that gender gap is one of the first goals for those in charge of local workforce development efforts.

“If we could just better attract women to the industry – and it’s not just about attracting, it’s also making sure the industry is ready for women and that the work sites and workplaces are also places women want to be … we can go a long way in closing that gap,” said Tamara Atkinson, CEO of Workforce Solutions Capital Area. “Right now we have a lot of good (job training) efforts happening, but they’re disconnected and they’re disparate. We can go a long way in addressing some of these shortages if we can get into schools earlier with consistent messaging, give clearer, consistent front-door options for people that want to learn about and get into these programs.”

To help solve that shortage, Workforce Solutions will use CivicSol’s data and findings to produce an action plan before the end of the year. Atkinson and other stakeholders will use that plan in talks with local policymakers to create support for training programs and possibly incentives for companies to hire locally rather than luring talent from other parts of the country.

That tactic could be crucial, since major companies such as Tesla and Samsung are also in competition for workers to maintain or expand their own workforce.

“Right now in Austin, we don’t have enough people to meet the jobs that will be created 20 years from now. But Austin will continue to grow, and the jobs will continue to shift,” she said. “Businesses are going to find talent where they will go wherever they need to find the talent. What Workforce Solutions stands for is we really are advocates for and we’re unapologetic advocates for people that have chosen to set down their roots in Austin.”

By the end of the summit, Atkinson said attendees were unified on the extent of the challenge of local hiring in the years to come and willing to partner on solutions. Some of those include making training programs in different organizations more aligned and improving recruiting efforts to keep enough trained workers in the pipeline.

“We are going to need to have all approaches considered, but they’ve got to be organized and they’ve got to be coordinated,” she said. “We know that we need to have employers going into and talking to students as young as elementary school. That was one of the things talked about at the summit. We can’t wait to talk to a senior in high school. We’ve got to be reaching students earlier and earlier.”

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