(MARSHALL, Texas) – As East Texas experiences population growth, the construction industry seeks skilled workers to meet increasing demand for new housing.
Texas accounted for 15% of the nation’s new-home construction permits and 9% of the United States population in 2024, according to National Mortgage Professional, and local and regional building construction employers are feeling the pressure.
To help close the skills gap, in which there are more jobs than trained workers to fill them, Texas State Technical College’s Marshall campus is opening its new Building Construction Technology program next fall.
Bradley Hayes, program team lead for the Marshall campus, emphasized that TSTC’s program offerings are closely aligned with industry needs in this region. The need for the program in Marshall was determined by growth demand and the current number of job openings as cited by government websites, Workforce Solutions East Texas, and local community resources.
“The way TSTC works is there has to be a community need for a technology before we will consider offering it at a campus,” Hayes said. “If you look at our 11 campuses, that’s why they don’t all teach the same (programs). There are an estimated 4,100 jobs for people in (building construction), with continued growth and pretty decent salaries.”
Several East Texas employers are looking to partner with TSTC to help build a reliable pipeline of trained workers for the construction industry. Tim Keeley, CEO of Martin Specialty Coatings in Shreveport, said his company regularly partners with local Texas and Louisiana schools to recruit younger workers.
“When we heard TSTC was doing this program, we wanted to get involved with it simply because we think they have better quality students, their programs are on a higher level and they’re only 30 minutes from here,” Keeley said.
Rudy Galvan, general manager of building materials supplier Cassity Jones at its Marshall location, said the company’s Fort Worth location hit $1 million in sales in its first four months of operation.
“East Texas is growing just like the metroplex,” Galvan said. “If we can have the plans in place and the people in place to help us grow and to keep the region growing, it’s a no-brainer.”
According to onetonline.org, first-line supervisors of construction trades and extraction workers earn a median salary of $73,420 in Texas, where the number of these jobs was projected to grow 13% through 2032.
Building Construction Technology is also available at TSTC’s Harlingen, New Braunfels, Sweetwater and Waco campuses. The program offers two Associate of Applied Science degrees and a certificate of completion.
Registration for TSTC’s fall semester is underway. For more information, go to tstc.edu.