- The demand for construction services is expected to increase as the population grows and as existing infrastructure and buildings need to be maintained, repaired, or replaced.

Today in the Career Center, we explore job opportunities in the construction and building trades, go on the job with an electrician and learn about a carpentry training program for teens.

Plus productivity tips to help you get more done.

Stay tuned.

- [Narrator 1] The Career Center is made possible by General Motors.

(light electronic music) And by these supporters.

And by viewers like you.

Thank you.

(birds chirping) (people chattering) (bell rings) - So there are five phases to career readiness.

You start with a self-assessment, then move into career awareness, career exploration, and then career training and preparation.

- That's a lot.

- Yeah, you did all of that for your first job?

- Yeah, I did.

Here's an example for you.

When I was your age, I loved science and math and I loved working with kids.

I had babysitting jobs all the time.

So I went to my guidance counselor, told her about my interests and my skills, and she was able to match that to courses and career opportunities.

- So that's the career exploration part?

- Right.

So let me ask you something.

What kind of classes do you like?

- I really like making things, so I like when classes are hands on.

- Me too.

- That's perfect.

So have you ever considered something in the building trades?

- I don't think I wanna build houses.

- There are so many more career options in that area.

That's where career exploration comes in.

Let's take a look together at what other opportunities there are in construction and building trades.

- [Narrator 2] Building and maintaining all kinds of structures is what makes the construction industry tick.

People who work in construction build homes, manufacturing plants and office buildings, as well as streets and highways, sewers, irrigation projects and more.

The industry also includes activities such as painting, electrical work, and plumbing.

The construction industry's status and the country's economic growth are strongly linked.

When construction is up, spending increases on related products like furniture, appliances or equipment to outfit new structures.

Related areas such as property development and material suppliers also benefit from construction industry growth.

And when large numbers of workers are hired for construction projects, they spend their earnings on other parts of the economy as well.

In a similar vein, when there's a downturn in the economy, the construction industry often slows, and a ripple effect is felt throughout related industries, which are then forced to shrink their production and lay off workers.

A large number of jobs in construction are expected to open up in the next few years as highly skilled and experienced trade workers, such as laborers, carpenters, electricians, plumbers, equipment operators, painters and supervisors retire from the workforce.

Many employers want to would attract women and people of color to positions in the skilled traits, as they are currently often underrepresented on the job.

Construction fields with the largest number of workers include construction laborers, carpenters, electricians, plumbers, construction equipment operators, construction managers, painters, and cement masons.

Quick facts to know.

Over 7 million workers are employed in the industry, with more than 800,000 new jobs expected in the next decade.

Safety equipment improvements are continuously under development to minimize risk of injury for construction industry workers.

Builders increasingly use modular and prefabricated products to speed up project timelines dramatically.

Many designers and builders are using sustainable materials and minimizing resource use.

For example, reusing waste water for toilets and recycling construction materials.

Innovation in eco materials is a key area of growth.

- Visiting a job site and shadowing someone is a great activity to do as you start to explore career opportunities.

- Really?

That's exactly what I did last week.

- That's fantastic.

Tell us more about that.

- So my teacher introduced me to an electrician at Motor City Electric Company.

I asked if I could follow him for a week and see what they do.

Electricity makes modern life possible.

Just try to imagine your life without it.

No television, no internet, no microwaved meals.

We are so reliant on electricity that when the power goes out at home or work, everything comes to a halt.

Fortunately, skilled electricians work to bring power to all the places we need it and restore it when the lights go dark.

Today I'm at Motor City Electric in Detroit, Michigan to learn about this electrifying career.

Maybe we'll learn something that jolts your career path towards the building trades.

Hi Pat, thanks for having me here at the Motor City Electric Company.

- You're very welcome.

We're very excited to have you here at Motor City Electric.

We're the number one largest contractor in Michigan for electrical construction.

- [Brooke] Let's talk about the careers in the electrical industry.

- There's quite a few careers, and there's a lot of opportunities for young kids out there, and that's what we're looking for.

We're looking for the brightest and best.

And a lot of kids nowadays, they hear through their education that you gotta go to college, you gotta go to college.

Well, there's another pathway.

It's the trades.

What we want you to do is go to the trade school.

We want you to learn the trade at the apprenticeship school.

They're gonna teach you everything.

And during that time, we pay you throughout your schooling.

It's a five-year program, and you come out debt free, you make great money and great retirement.

- [Brooke] Where do electricians typically work?

- So we work everywhere.

You can find yourself one day 60 stories up on a building with open steel, and then you can find yourself 60 foot underground.

You can find yourself on high tension lines.

You can find yourself in a building, in a school, in a stadium.

We work everywhere.

Again, everywhere you see a light turn on or any electricity, it's us.

- [Brooke] I met up with Justin, an apprentice, so I could try out some of the essential activities an electrician is expected to master.

- [Justin] Okay, Brooke.

So what we're gonna do right now is we're gonna bend some conduit.

This here's the bender we use.

- [Brooke] The electricians use conduit, also known as pipe, to protect wire as it travels through a structure.

- And then you're gonna wanna go right about, maybe come back a little bit more, just a little bit out past the shoe.

- [Brooke] They choose the angle at which to bend the pipe depending on the route the wire needs to take.

Today we're bending a simple 90 degree angle - And then we're gonna wanna shoot a little bit farther than 90 degrees once you get... All right, stop there, and then keep going a little bit more.

And that's good there.

- Okay.

- And now we just wanna take it out of the machine, and then we're good.

- Yay.

- Okay, Brooke.

So now what we're gonna do is we're gonna wire up some boxes.

This is what we use to put all of our devices in, outlets, switches.

- [Brooke] Wherever you have an electrical connection, such as an outlet or a light switch, that connection needs to be enclosed and protected in a box.

Building codes require this protection because contact between wires can cause a spark.

Boxes also prevent us from accidentally touching wires.

- And what you're gonna wanna do is right at the end of your wire, slide this right in.

Give it a little wiggle, then just give it a good push, and you'll hear it pop into place.

Now what we're gonna need to do is on each of these boxes, we need to put a ground in there.

That's what grounds the box.

So then that way everything's grounded so that way you won't get electrocuted.

- [Brooke] Is it righty tighty?

- [Justin] Yes, righty tighty.

- Okay.

- [Justin] Push that wire right through that hole we just made.

And then we're just gonna take this end, and we're just gonna push it until we hear a click.

- Ooh, I do not have a good grip.

Ah, could you do it?

- Yep.

A lot of times let your thumb right behind it.

- What do you think, Justin?

Did I do a good job?

- You did a great job.

- [Brooke] Thank you.

- Okay, Brooke, so now what we're gonna do is we're gonna build these trapezes here.

These trapezes are used to hang conduit cable tray.

So first thing we're gonna have to do is we're gonna have to cut the strut.

- Okay.

Trapezes are made primarily of metal strut, which plays a crucial role in the structural integrity of an electrical system.

Strut can be trimmed to size with a strut cutter.

- [Justin] So now we're gonna check it for burrs, make sure there's nothing bad on it.

- Looks good.

- Looks good.

Okay, Brooke, so now we're gonna cut our threaded rod.

This is all set up for us already.

- [Brooke] Threaded rod is essentially a really long bolt.

It's used to connect objects together whenever the length or diameter exceeds that of conventional bolts and screws.

- Give that a squeeze.

(drill whirs) Once it backs off, and that's our threaded rod.

- How many of these do you have to cut for a whole trapeze?

- Each trapeze will get somewhere around two to three to four, depending on the weight you're putting on that unit strut.

On a big job between us and all the other trades, you could be cutting upwards of 300,000 of these when you have a big job.

- Whoa.

Why choose a career in the electrical industry?

- Multiple reasons.

Great pay, great retirement, great career.

You have that license forever.

Wherever you go, any state you can use it.

So right now we have a huge gap.

We have a lot of our older electricians retiring.

We need that younger generation to come in, become electricians and take over for the older guys that are retiring right now.

- Say a young person is interested in this industry.

What should they be doing now?

- Get out there and hustle.

Go to electrical companies, right?

Apply, get in early.

We have a program at Motor City Electric where we bring in young kids through internships and through panel building and through warehouse.

They get the feeling of what we do out there in the business.

And if it's for them, then they segue and they apply to the apprenticeship and go that route.

- [Brooke] Thank you, Motor City Electric Company for letting me be an electrician for the day.

I learned that there's a need for a new generation of electrical worker.

The demand is high and the rewards are great.

If the idea of keeping the lights on makes you feel energized, this could be the career for you.

- So you both said that you enjoy taking classes that are more hands on.

Have you ever considered taking any CTE classes?

- I'm not sure.

What is that?

- So CTE stands for Career and Technical Education.

And in career and technical education programs, students have a chance to take classes that will prepare them for entry level jobs in different trades.

So for example, nursing or welding, maybe engineering or mechatronics or IT and computer programming.

- Are CTE programs only for adults?

- Not at all.

Our school, other high schools and organizations offer CTE programs.

In fact, the Michigan Council for Carpenters and Mill Rights has a carpentry program for teens in Detroit.

- [Reporter] Detroit's West Side, the Tuxedo neighborhood near Grand River, Livernois, and the Jeffries Freeway.

Abandoned houses is common here.

But this summer, signs of progress.

Along with this demolition order, some new construction down the street, it's carpentry camp, a summer program put on by the Carpenters Union to get high school students interested in the trade.

- So you gotta be careful.

Do not go further.

We're not here to make them carpenters.

We're here to introduce them to carpentry so they can touch it, feel it, do it, make the mistakes on it, make sure they understand that it's not life ending if they do make a mistake, and how to fix it.

- [Reporter] The Carpenters and Mill Rights Union has a stake in this neighborhood.

Their new trade school is going up here right along I-96.

Part of the school's mission, get more Detroiters working in construction.

- [Jamal] It's unfortunate because a lot of kids today don't believe that this option is out there for them.

They don't even know about it.

You're gonna have to bring this saw.

Remember, we had to make a center cut.

- [Reporter] Cortez Asberry's done this camp before.

Now he's headed for a carpentry apprenticeship with the union.

- But this is good.

You do something new every day.

- [Jamal] Mark the line here.

We teach them a little bit of math.

We teach them how to read a tape measure and we teach them how to do basic skills projects.

Good.

Done, done.

All right.

- [Cortez] At 15 I came here.

It was kind of hard.

Nobody's gonna know how to do it at first.

After it was done, you look at it, you loved it.

I loved it.

I wanted to stay forever.

- [Reporter] 31 participants this year.

Last year, COVID got in the way.

- Start it straight, and then angle it.

- [Reporter] This time it's community service for the Tuxedo neighborhood.

- [Jamal] Back in April, we put out a bunch of applications for residents to have work done on their houses.

We got almost a hundred projects.

Are we gonna get a hundred projects done?

Absolutely not.

But we are gonna get done the most needy that we see that we have to do.

All right, where's the top one at?

That's all right, the top one will secure it in now.

These are the small projects that we can do to give back.

It's absolutely free, no charge to the resident, and these kids are getting paid.

- [Reporter] Jamal Al said the students are learning teamwork, communication, and how to execute plans.

- [Jamal] And we got one source of power here.

Where's it at?

Who can tell me?

The generator.

Get the generator out now.

We try to explain to them what we're doing, how we do it, and then we let them do it.

And kids are gonna make mistakes.

They've never done this before.

You gotta put it right in the middle.

We're doing porches, handrails and porch rails.

- [Reporter] Here, a porch beyond expectations, a major project for a crew of beginners, a showcase of what they can do.

- Well, it took about five days, and it was pretty much an entire remodel.

All these Detroit homes are pretty old.

So the porch, it was probably around like 80 years old, and we had to pretty much demo the whole thing.

We had to take the frame down and completely build it back up from scratch.

- [Jamal] You know what, this is a great neighborhood.

People can drive through it and see that the houses are deteriorated.

They just can't afford to fix them up.

- [Reporter] What happens after this for these campers?

- [Jamal] We have six kids are old enough to go to work.

Out of the six, four of them are being placed.

So they've already gone into our apprenticeship program.

They've graduated, and they're moving in to the next step and the next phase of this program.

So you've got screws, there's some right there.

They're going to work, they're getting jobs.

- [Reporter] Is this career for you or what?

- I feel like this is a journey for me.

I'm gonna do this forever.

- [Jamal] We teach them about the money, we teach them about the benefits, we teach them about a great middle class living with pensions.

- Family always tells me that they proud of what I'm doing and that I'm gonna be prepared for my future.

- [Reporter] Ivan Walker, a senior at Detroit's Renaissance High School, he's planning for college, but eyeing a trade school too, along with a degree in computer engineering.

But is it an either/or?

Why are you doing this if you're gonna do that?

- Well, I always wanted to have a plan B.

There's no point.

I'm not gonna put all my chips on black.

I wanna be prepared for anything because life can throw anything at you.

- [Reporter] Mahmmoud Eljammali, he's a former camper, now helping out, an architecture student at the University of Detroit Mercy.

- I'm going to college, but I still wanna do this.

I love this stuff.

I wouldn't be able to do 50 years of just blueprint making.

I'm a hands down guy.

And after my four years in college architecture, I'm most likely gonna come into the union, do my four years there, and have the skills of a carpenter, an experienced carpenter and be an architect.

- This is just our organization.

There's 17 other crafts just like us in the trades that are out there, and we're trying to push for kids to understand what the trades are.

- I've always wanted to help rebuild Detroit.

It's gonna be a long process to really get these houses back in the shape that they should be, but it can, it can definitely happen.

- [Narrator 2] When a building goes up, construction managers handle the big questions.

Who's doing what, how long it will take, how much will it cost, and what happens if there's an accident or work delay?

They plan and supervise all types of construction projects, buildings, roads, bridges and more from beginning to end.

Construction managers work closely with architects, civil engineers, and a variety of trades workers.

They frequently call in city inspectors to ensure that all regulations are met, and may consult with lawyers and local officials for large projects.

They use cost estimating and planning software to develop budgets and schedules, which they must maintain, while also fulfilling design specifications.

Construction managers work in both commercial and residential construction.

Many are self-employed, while others work for specialty trade contractors.

They typically have an office, but spend most of their time onsite to monitor construction activities and make on-the-spot decisions.

Long hours are common, as is being on call around the clock.

While almost all positions require extensive construction experience, formal education needed ranges from a bachelor's degree for the biggest projects, to an associate's degree or a high school diploma for smaller projects.

Some managers are in general contractor credentials and work for themselves.

A new construction manager typically trains as an assistant under an experienced manager.

- People who work in construction trades often have to deal with multiple projects and really tight deadlines.

So on a scale of one to 10, how are you with dealing with your school assignments and personal projects?

- I will give myself a five.

I typically get a lot of ideas for projects and assignments, but I don't usually get the opportunity to carry them out.

It gets overwhelming.

- I give myself about a six or a seven.

It's just a lot of work between school and after school.

- You're both managing so much.

I've been working on this video series about 21st century skills, and I just finished one that talks a lot about different techniques and skills that you could use to help manage exactly what you're talking about.

Let's take a look.

Having a hard time finishing projects by the deadline?

Wish you could free up more time for fun?

You're in the right place.

I'm Andrea Pisani and I work with students every day to help them explore their passions and make great futures for themselves.

Let's talk about the skills everyone needs to make it in the 21st century, 21st century skills.

And today's life skill is productivity.

The common goal of every professional, regardless of industry or position, is to be more productive.

So what does productivity really mean?

The US Bureau of Labor Statistics defines productivity as the measure of economic performance that compares the amount of goods and services produced with the amount of inputs used to produce those goods and services.

Productivity is a person or company's ability to get the most done without wasting resources like money or time.

For example, for a construction company, productivity might be measured by the number of new houses built each year.

But regardless of industry, being productive in the work world helps you to complete tasks efficiently, hopefully with less mistakes and higher quality.

Being productive also enables you to stay ahead of your workload, work smarter instead of harder, and have more time to focus on your other responsibilities and interests.

So what can you do now to be more productive?

Developing a routine is an important first step in becoming a more productive student and professional.

Routines help you remain organized and focused on completing tasks throughout the day.

A routine can include things like when you will wake up and go to bed, when you study, how long you'll devote to a task, et cetera.

A search for productivity routines will give you a number of blog posts that feature routines that have helped others.

Once you've established a routine, get in the habit of creating a to-do list.

Creating to-do lists every day will help you manage all the things that need to get done on a regular basis and prioritize tasks accordingly.

Writing down your schoolwork, deadlines and extracurriculars in an organized way can help you stay focused.

Your cell phone or tablet likely has a note or calendar app that you could use to track your daily lists.

If not, visit the app store for your device and type to-do list or time management and find an app you like.

There are many free options for phone, tablet, and computers.

The key is to find one you like and use it consistently.

Having clearly defined daily goals will help your decision making throughout the day and provide direction for your personal, academic, and professional development.

Now that you have a to-do list, focus on accomplishing each task one at a time.

It's tempting to multitask.

That is, do multiple things at once, like writing an essay and searching for summer internships.

You may think you're getting a lot done by combining the activities, but the truth is multitasking reduces productivity.

Researchers have found that multitasking actually slows you down and increases distractions and mistakes.

Speaking of distractions, you wanna be more productive?

Do your best to eliminate distractions.

And they come in many forms.

Some are out of our control, but some we can control.

The best way to eliminate distractions is by creating an environment where most or all varieties are blocked.

This will help you stay focused on the task at hand instead of worrying about all sorts of external factors.

Consider making your work time a no-phone zone.

During your work and study time, turn off all notifications or leave your phone in another room until you take a break.

Which leads us to our final tip.

Take a break.

The purpose of being more productive is to maximize your outcomes, not to make yourself miserable.

Self-care is important, especially as you set out to challenge yourself and develop new skill sets.

So find something each day that brings you joy.

Maybe it's reading or dancing or listening to music or building something or playing a sport.

Making sure to rest between tasks is an important part of maintaining focus and energy levels while being productive.

Everyone has different ways they like to be productive, and there are many ways to make the most of your time.

Experiment to find the strategies that work best for you.

Productivity is one of the most important skills to master as you prepare for a career.

And the great thing is you can start right now.

To learn more about the other 21st century skills, be sure to visit our website, mifutureofwork.org.

So what are your thoughts?

- So in the productivity video, it gave me some pointers on how to do time management during school and after school so I won't fall behind.

- I liked being on the job, but I'm not sure that line of work is for me.

But it gave me a great opening for other career options.

- That's fantastic.

I'm glad you got some useful information from the video, and it sounds like you have a path to follow for figuring out what will work for you.

That's great.

And if you'd like to learn more about opportunities in the building trades, visit our website at mifutureofwork.org/buildingtrades.

There you'll find videos, resources and more to set you on your path.

And this week, consider stopping by your counseling center to see what CTE courses are available in your area.

See you next time.

- [Narrator 1] The Career Center is made possible by General Motors.

And by these supporters.

And by viewers like me.

Thank you.

(soft music)