Construction Careers and Real Estate Climate - Chamber Check-In - Nine North

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Construction Careers and Real Estate Climate – Chamber Check-In

John Connolly President of Twin Cities North Chamber of Commerce was joined with Joy day Maray Lance to see how construction careers are being opened for the youth of Minnesota, and with Chad Heer with KW Commercial to see the current real estate climate. 

Joy explains how Project Build Minnesota was founded in 2018 by the construction industry, and works to bring Minnesota youth into construction careers! They are working in 4 different areas to make this project successful, including building relationships with educators and school counselors to promote this career option, supporting construction teachers specifically with an annual professional development conference. They also have a great website with information for youth and their families, and, starting in the fall, there will be Metro Area Scouts Explorer Posts that will expose youth and their families to a variety of career options in the trades. 

Construction careers are great for people just graduating from high school who might not want to go to college, to start working in a well-paid position, but there are also positions for college grads, and multiple entrepreneurial opportunities as well! The labor jobs have also become much easier on the body with all of the new technology that has been developed in the construction trades!

One of the potential challenges the project may face is that historically, the construction industry is not considered diverse, and so they will be sure to promote this opportunity to all high school graduates intentionally and thoughtfully, and work to ensure that everyone will have the same career and wage opportunities. 

Joy’s advice for young people looking to learn more about construction trades is to go to their website, projectbuildmn.org to see all the available careers, along with the wages and required trainings, etc. Joy also points out that if the new employees are committed, fast learners, and show that they are a good investment for the company, they can be making 6 figures in just a couple of years! 

Chad with KW Commercial Chat describes how the retail stores and downtown districts are struggling right now with not as many working in the offices, but as people start to come back to work, those areas are expected to pick up again. 

Many office buildings are remodeling to handle the hybrid model of employees working partly from home and in the office. Some offices are also starting to change the working environment to include more of the amenities from home including more outdoor spaces, possibly bringing pets to work, and new food options.  

Chad points out that there is a lot of optimism for people to get back to working in the office because everyone is excited to be with their co-workers again. 

Thank you for tuning in to our Chamber Check In! Our vision is to promote business, develop leaders, connect communities here in our footprint between cities, north area, check our website, twin citiesnorth.org for all listings of information. 

 

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