SAN DIEGO (Border Report) — Since October, the construction and building industry in Baja California has been employing homeless people to offset a labor shortage in the region.
“We’re offering them scholarships and a chance to grab onto an opportunity to become mason workers, electricians, plumbers with the advantage of knowing there will a market ready to hire them,” said Gabriel Vizcaíno, president of Tijuana’s Chamber of Construction Industry.
A homeless-service agency called Proyecto Salesiano is working with the building industry to offer homeless people an opportunity to learn a trade.
Organizers say the initiative is positive step for those who have decided to participate.
“We have a void in terms of human resources, we need to train personnel to have a labor force ready to fill job openings,” Vizcaíno said. “These type of initiatives will help us find workers, we need to integrate the homeless, we also need agreements in place with job training sites.”
The training is being financed by Proyecto Salesiano, state government funds and the building industry.
“Investment of this kind is limited, there are few construction companies capable of financing job training of this scale, we wish there was more public funding for this type of training,” said Vizcaíno.
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