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“Finally, all the reconstruction work that is coming as a result of Hurricanes Irma and Maria, the earthquakes and even some of the pandemic-related stuff, well now comes the time when it is being done,” Ortiz Serrano said.
“We are the leading association in the industry today with over 350 members. We have general contractors, subcontractors, product and service suppliers. At this time, as part of the services we are providing, we are trying to help improve the workforce,” he added.
When asked by The News Journal about strategies to boost recruitment, the engineer indicated that they are developing curricula to train personnel within the projects, and in the classroom, with the purpose of increasing the supply, which between 2006-2007 had a labor participation of around 90,000 people.
Now, they intend to increase the number of workers to around 70 thousand, double the current number of 35 thousand people in the construction area.
“For many years, the construction industry had people where knowledge was passed from one generation to the next because the son worked with the father or uncle and in that way it was passed on. When Puerto Rico entered the economic problems that we know there were in the last decade, much of that knowledge transfer did not occur because we had much less construction at that time,” the AGC-PR president noted.
“In addition to the fact that wages are becoming much more competitive than they were historically in the construction sector, we are taking on the task of preparing the curriculum and, in collaboration with educational institutions, to train people, following the guidelines of federal programs (under the WIOA Act) that allocate funds to train those personnel. The person can now enter a job in the construction industry as an entry level job and be formally trained… and is guaranteed an improvement in technical and academic learning, but at the same time the person is also guaranteed to have economic growth,” he added.
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Regarding the cost of supplying materials, which had increased due to inflation, high interest rates and geopolitical conflicts, Ortiz Santana pointed out that prices have begun to stabilize. He remains hopeful that, for the second half of this year, “everything will be more controlled” and the escalation will not continue as it has been in recent years.
For the engineer, Puerto Rico is facing an unprecedented opportunity in which the island has funds available to lead the reconstruction of the entire infrastructure of the country. Meanwhile, as an association, he affirmed that they are focused on meeting the needs of the industry so that the projects do not stop and to expedite the permitting processes to convert the efforts into works for Puerto Ricans.
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Publish date : 2024-02-02 03:00:00
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