A group of 45 apprentice carpenters and laborers make up the first group of a new job training facility in Sacramento.

Angel Lopez was among the inaugural class that started July 17. He drove nearly three hours from his home in Fresno to attend. Strong commercial construction activity prompted a Bay Area-based building trades association, Associated Builders and Contractors Northern California, to open the Sacramento center.

Lopez, 22, attended community college for a year but didn’t get much out of it.

The construction industry had 371,000 job openings in October, according to an Associated Builders and Contractors analysis of data from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics’ Job Openings and Labor Turnover Survey. JOLTS defines a job opening as any unfilled position for which an employer is actively recruiting. Industry job openings decreased by 52,000 last month and are down 21,000 from the same time last year.

On Wednesday the 26th, the Elk Grove City Council will vote on a Community Workforce Training Agreement (CWTA) with the Sacramento Sierra Building and Construction Trades Council and AFL-CIO that will prevent a majority of local skilled and trained construction professionals from working and earning prevailing wages right here in their own backyard giving local jobs to union-only workers.

On the first day of Suicide Prevention Month 2022, Associated Builders and Contractors calls on the entire construction industry to strengthen total human health among its workers and decrease the number of deaths by suicide.

Associated Builders and Contractors today released the following statement in response to the publication of a proposed rule, Federal Acquisition Regulation: Use of Project Labor Agreements for Federal Construction Projects, implementing President Biden’s Executive Order 14063, which requires federal construction contracts of $35 million or more to be subjected to controversial project labor agreements.

Associated Builders and Contractors today announced the members of its third annual Tech Alliance—a consortium of firms that create construction technology and innovative solutions for ABC contractor members, the majority of which primarily perform work in the industrial and commercial sectors.

The construction industry had 334,000 job openings in June, according to an Associated Builders and Contractors analysis of data from the U.S. Bureau of Labor

National nonresidential construction spending was down by 0.5% in June, according to an Associated Builders and Contractors analysis of data published today by the U.S. Census Bureau. On a seasonally adjusted annualized basis, nonresidential spending totaled $829.4 billion for the month.

As more women continue to build paths in various industries that have typically been male dominated—tech, manufacturing, trucking, construction—they are also building more opportunities as well as buildings.