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DENVER — There’s at least one booming industry in Colorado right now, desperately looking for workers:  the construction industry.  After a decade of doldrums, Colorado construction is hot again. 

Between February 2011 and February 2012, the Denver-Aurora-Broomfield area added 6,300 construction jobs, according to the Associated General Contractors of America.  That’s more than anywhere else in the United States. 

Right now, about 137,000 Coloradans are working in construction.  Times are good.

“The first quarter of 2012, we will equal the construction volume and revenue that we had in all of 2011,” said David Sinkey, managing director for Boulder Creek Builders.  His company is hard at work developing the Steel Ranch neighborhood in Louisville.  But there’s a problem.  He can’t find enough construction workers.

“We’re very concerned about the labor force.  We’ve already reached a point in our construction that there’s a limitation on the number of framers and trades-people that are available,” he said.

The problem?  When the economy tanked, and building in Colorado all but stopped a few years ago, lots of construction workers moved away, or got out of the business entirely, because times got so tough.

“Extremely tough,” said Robert Lazarony, a construction workers who was out of work for six and a half months, after the construction company where he’d worked for more than a decade folded during the downturn.

“You’re not always sure what the outcome is going to be,” he said.

But now, he’s back to work, overseeing the building of Steel Ranch homes, and he’s desperate to hire good construction workers.  It’s tough to do, because they’re being snatched up by other builders. 

His advice?  If you’re looking to reinvent yourself… a job in the construction industry might be the way to go.  There are plenty of openings.  Just make sure you have a passion for building.  And make sure you learn how to do it right, before you apply.

“Let them get trained somewhere else and then send them my way,” he joked.

To learn more about jobs in construction jobs, click here: http://www.constructionjobs.com/index_eng.cfm

To learn more about the 6300 construction jobs in the Denver-Aurora-Broomfield area, click here: http://www.agc.org/cs/news_media/press_room/press_release?pressrelease.id=1063