Associated Builders And Contractors (ABC) and the military placement agency Orion International recently launched www.veteransbuildamerica.org, a new interactive site that links military veterans with available positions in the construction trades.
“We realize that the transition from military life to civilian life can sometimes be difficult,” Kirk Pickerel, ABC president and CEO, said in a press release announcing the site. “It is our hope that VeteransBuildAmerica.org will help ease this transaction by providing opportunities for veterans to begin a career in the U.S. construction industry.”
The Orion-managed site will allow job seekers to search for positions by geographic regions using a keyword search engine. They can also browse through lists of available positions or post their résumés on the site, where employers can view them.
Military veterans will obviously benefit from the site, says Bob Piper, ABC’s vice president of workforce development, because “there is a tremendous amount of job opportunities in the construction industry.” But the site is also a welcome resource for ABC’s 23,000 member companies, of which a small number are residential builders, Piper says. The association cites a Bureau of Labor Statistics estimate that the construction industry will need to hire 240,000 skilled workers per year to keep pace with growth demands and to replace people who leave the industry.
Member builders, construction companies, and contractors may post job openings on the site free of charge, but nonmembers must pay a small fee, ABC says.
