BUILDER NEWS Millennials are marrying later, but that’s not exactly bad for homebuilders, Toll Brothers CEO says Construction sector embraces apprentices Connecticut, like many other states, is experiencing a shortage of carpenters, brick masons, steelworkers, electricians, heating, air conditioning and ventilation installers, and other residentialconstruction skilled tradespeople. And, as it has partnered with its manufacturers to create and enhance skills development through apprenticeship training, Connecticut’s labor overseer offers an ongoing apprenticeship development program to the building trades. Connecticut’s building-trades employment routinely oscillates, according to the season and often in step with the state and national economies, observers say. The 2008 near-global financial collapse, and the subsequent U.S. Great Recession greatly eroded demand for new homes and buildings here and in other states. The result was “you lost a generation of workers entering into the construction field,” says Ellington home builder Eric Santini, who is president of the Home Builders & Remodelers Association of Central Connecticut. Filling that construction-skills gap will take time, but the state Department of Labor says such training is underway in both the public and private sectors. According to Todd Berch, who is the state Department of Labor’s apprenticeship manager, there are between 5,000 and 5,500 men and women enrolled in two- to four-year construction apprentice training programs. Those who successfully complete the training, Berch said, are then eligible to apply to take the state’s journeymen licensing examination Read More 20 HBRA of Fairfield County | SEPTEMBER 2018 Millennials may be frequently blamed for destroying industries like brick-and-mortar retail, but their habits aren’t exactly bad for homebuilders like Toll Brothers, the luxury construction company’s CEO told CNBC on Tuesday. “We know they’re marrying later, so they’re buying homes later, but that also means they’re wealthier when they buy,” CEO Douglas Yearley told “Mad Money” host Jim Cramer in an interview. CNBC reported in July that today, just 57 percent of firsttime homebuyers are married, compared with 75 percent in 1985. That trend could lead to more millennials being able to afford Toll Brothers’ higher end homes, a boon for the company, Yearley told Cramer. “If not, they’re going to buy the homes from our buyers, because ... while we’re not selling the starter home, that’s in our food chain. We need that to be healthy,” the CEO added. Read More
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