| OTIA III State Bridge Delivery Program |
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| Web Brief (Aug 05) |
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ODOT works with partners to build a larger, diverse workforce
A statewide workforce development initiative designed to boost diversity in employment, increase apprenticeship participation, and increase training resources and opportunities for highway construction jobs debuted in Portland recently.
The plan’s first public meeting was held July 19 at the Oregon Association of Minority Entrepreneurs in Portland.
Because ODOT highway and bridge construction projects will reach record levels in the next seven to 10 years, the state is facing a shortage of qualified workers. If there is not an immediate effort to identify, recruit, and train a new, more diverse, and larger workforce, there simply won't be enough qualified workers to get the job done.
The Oregon Department of Transportation's Workforce Development Plan grew directly through an alliance of many groups.
"The workforce program is the result of close cooperation among the diversity community, labor unions, construction contractors, community colleges and educators, local and state agencies, and others," said ODOT Director Bruce Warner. "We are working together toward a common goal: to ensure that a well-qualified and trained workforce is available for Oregon's growing number of highway construction jobs."
The Workforce Development Plan calls for each of ODOT's five regions to form an active Regional Workforce Alliance designed to boost the numbers of minorities and women in the highways construction trades and create new career paths.
The workforce plan has three critical elements:
- Increasing apprenticeship targets from the current 5 percent to 20 percent during the next 18 months.
- Boosting participation in transportation construction projects in the Portland tri-county area to 14 percent employment for women and 20 percent for minority workers.
- Taking steps to ensure that a qualified and diverse labor pool is ready to meet contractor needs for federally and state-funded transportation projects.
“ODOT’s Workforce Development Plan will be reviewed annually to ensure that it meets two important goals: increasing apprenticeships, and training and growing a qualified labor pool,” Warner said. “That will tell us how successful we are at recruiting and hiring women and minority workers and how the construction trades are helping to boost career-building skills and a talented labor pool statewide.”
ODOT’s Diversity Manager, Michael A. Cobb, and a Workforce Advisory Committee will help the five Regional Workforce Alliances to implement the plan at the regional level.
The initial implementation of the plan will occur as a pilot project for the first two years. During the pilot project phase, only OTIA III projects statewide and all ODOT construction projects in Multnomah, Clackamas, and Washington counties will use the new increased apprenticeship/training requirements and women and minority utilization goals. Following this two-year period, and pending Federal Highway Administration approval, ODOT will determine whether to include the new utilization goals on all ODOT projects.
For more information, read the Workforce Development Plan.
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