CHARLESTON, W.Va. –The West Virginia Building and Construction Trades Council partnered with Marshall University’s Center for Business and Economics to conduct a study to see the impact trades have on the economy on the state.
WV BCTC, which is a company that offers 15 different trades to those wanting to learn, revealed their key findings during a media briefing Thursday afternoon at the Four Points by Sheraton in Charleston.
Justin Williams, Director of the Affiliated Construction Trades, said that the study confirmed the statistics that the council already knew about the impact on the economy in the state.
“Union construction trades in West Virginia, union construction workers generated about eight billion dollars in economic impact in 2022-2023, we do billions of dollars wages and benefits, and $58 million dollars go to training, safety, workforce development, drug free workforce training for our members,” he said.
These workers are doing roofing, electrical, industrial painting, bricklayers and more.
Williams says the idea behind the study was to quantify the numbers to show everyone that the trades do have an impact on the economy.
“We wanted to really quantify that to relay to our friends, and our neighbors, elected officials, to say the careers that you can make in the trades are really valuable part of our communities,” he said.
He said those that are learning a trade, or work in a trade help people maintain their businesses because they have built facilities for energy, facilities that we all use, has done maintenance work for hospitals.
And they help by using those facilities that they help build or maintain.
“So, we’re real partners to all of the industries in the state, both building what they need and maintaining support for them by buying or using their services and their products,” Williams said.
He also said that having trade jobs in local communities impact those communities in a positive way.
“The wages are staying there, there shopping at the local stores, our partner constructors and unions are sponsoring little league teams, there volunteering their times at those little leagues or at another non-profit organizations,” Williams said. “When one person in your community and then when there’s a while union of people of grows and then when there’s a whole union of people growing it brings the whole community up.”
And while the study mainly focused on the economic impact the trades have on communities, Williams also said he wanted to show that collaboration is important because they need people coming in and doing trade work.
“It’s a partnership, right, we need people to go to four year institutions, we need people that are going to the CTC’s (Community Tech Colleges), we need people going into the skilled trades as well because without all of them our communities and our economy doesn’t grow together and we got to work together and that’s what we really wanted to show is that we are a big impact on the state of West Virginia,” Williams said.