Americans are ready to rebuild our infrastructure. And a major part of making that happen is a commitment to expanding and strengthening America’s efforts to rebuild the construction workforce, which is suffering from a massive shortage. It’s one of the principles of President Trump’s $1.5 trillion infrastructure proposal unveiled this week. Coupled with February being Career and Technical Education Month, this is the perfect opportunity to shift our mentality about educating the next generation of American workers.

Today, the construction industry employs about 7.5 million workers, yet we need to hire a staggering 500,000 workers just to fill the current backlog of existing jobs. If we add a $1 trillion infrastructure bill into the equation, we could have more than one million jobs waiting to be filled. The demand for construction workers is high, and firms are anxiously looking to hire tomorrow’s electricians, carpenters, welders, plumbers, HVAC specialists and more.