We need a change now.
- Poverty/Low income impacts 1 in 2 households in Chicago*
- Apprentice-level carpenters starting wage = $15-$17/hr
- Revolution Workshop is providing a model that Chicago has never seen: fusing a comprehensive carpentry and design workforce development model with a social enterprise
- Skilled Trades employers have not been able to find enough good help
Skilled Trades Labor Shortage
- For the seventh consecutive year, the 2017 Manpower talent shortage employer survey lists the skilled trades as the hardest jobs to fill in the United States.
- Nearly 40% of the Chicago metro building construction workforce was lost after 2008, yet demand for building in 2017 continues to grow for both residential and commercial projects.*
- There is an aging workforce with more than half of skilled tradesmen over 45 years old.**
- A building renaissance is under way, as the last big building boom happened during the Eisenhower administration. Our nation’s infrastructure needs to be rebuilt.
* Chicago Tribune May 31, 2016 “Construction contractors warn of a labor shortage as building booms”
**EMSI, 2012