by Rebecca Walker — July 19, 2010—As unemployment throughout the country remains at around 10 percent, The Association for Facilities Engineering (AFE) is urging state employment agencies to provide unemployed workers with training in facilities-related professions, where there is a growing shortage of skilled workers.
“It is mind-boggling to me that more while millions of American workers have been unemployed for months or years, there is a growing shortage of skilled workers in the facilities profession,” said Laurence Gration, CEO of AFE.
Gration said the problem is not that unemployed workers aren’t applying for facilities-related jobs, but that most do not have the skills required for today’s highly complex building systems.
“Long gone are the days when someone could walk into a factory, school or other facility and depend on on-the-job training to operate their heating, cooling system or other building systems,” he said. “Today’s green and ultra high efficiency buildings systems require the type of training that only a comprehensive training, like AFE Certification programs, can provide.” Gration cited the example of one AFE member who had been unemployed for nearly a year before becoming AFE Certified. “After obtaining Certification and posting it on his resume, he quickly received three interviews and was hired by a Fortune 500 defense contractor shortly thereafter,” he said. “Ten years later, he is facilities director for that company, and he would be the first to attribute his professional success to becoming AFE Certified.” He added that the programs can be completed “in weeks rather than the years it would take to obtain a community college certification.”
For more information on AFE, see the Web site.
