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Emily Ingwersen owns and operates Ginger Hill Design + Build, a residential construction company based in Arundel. She has been a builder in southern Maine for more than 15 years.
Growing up, my father was a builder and I followed in his footsteps. That is becoming increasingly rare, and finding people to work in the trades is becoming harder and harder and more and more costly.
My company, Ginger Hill Design + Build in Arundel, builds new homes for Mainers. As we face a serious statewide housing shortage, the increasing difficulty of finding skilled tradespeople to work with me to build those houses is bad news for not only companies like mine, but for the future of housing in Maine.
Almost everyone I work with is over 40 and younger workers are simply not available. We know the gap between the workers we have and those we need can’t be filled by people already living in Maine.
We need to recruit many more skilled workers, and we are beginning to see opportunities to expand our workforce. The piece that is missing is English fluency.
Many of the skilled and talented crews that we have been able to recruit over the last several years are mainly Spanish and Portuguese speakers, and I’m sorry to say that my high school Spanish is not good enough to work effectively with roofing, framing and painting crews whose English is extremely limited.
My company needs these workers — I am not sure how our industry would be faring without them, and I only see that need increasing in the future.
I hope we’re able to continue attracting workers to Maine who will help us fill our ranks. But as we do, it is becoming more and more urgent that we ensure that these vital members of our state’s workforce are prepared to work at the highest level possible.
In my field, clear communication is vital to ensure things go smoothly on a jobsite. A language barrier is difficult to navigate, particularly when discussing technical information. Many of the folks that I have worked with are used to dealing with building codes that are different, often in subtle but important ways, and being able to communicate about specifications, codes and methods (and the reasons behind them) helps us build homes more quickly and efficiently.
Safety can also be an issue: Job sites can be busy places with a lot of things happening at any one time. If folks are not able to clearly communicate with each other it can create a dangerous situation for everyone involved.
My industry is not the only one being heavily impacted by the worker shortage in Maine — other industries also vital to Maine’s economy and wellbeing are hurting for workers, including hospitality and food service, education, and health care. These shortages are hurting our state, and individual Mainers. People who have come here from other countries, often with skills and qualifications we need, can fill many of these gaps, with some assistance.
A bill now in the Legislature would go a long way toward resolving the issues that my company and other organizations face in meeting our workforce needs. LD 471, “Resolve, to Establish a Pilot Program to Expand Intensive English Language Learner Programs,” would create a two-year pilot program to expand intensive adult English language learner (ELL) programs at the University of Maine and the University of Southern Maine.
These students would get intensive language instruction, and would also get other support that would help them to access this instruction: help with child care, transportation, technology, and living expenses. And it would train a few students every year to become English teachers themselves, so they can pass along the support they’ve received.
This bill, should it be enacted, would help support the growth of a skilled workforce. There are many people out there who have the technical skills required for construction but simply do not speak English. Investing in non-English-speaking Mainers’ language skills would be an easy way to utilize their existing knowledge to fill a critical gap in our workforce.