Washington, DC, March 29, 2021 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- A $1.5 trillion infrastructure program from the Biden-Harris administration would be good medicine to nurse the economic wounds inflicted by the COVID-19 pandemic. It would create or save 15 million jobs over 10 years, according to a new report from the Georgetown University Center on Education and the Workforce (CEW). 15 Million Infrastructure Jobs: An Economic Shot in the Arm to the COVID-19 Recession finds that an infrastructure stimulus would increase the share of infrastructure jobs from 11% to 14% of all jobs in this country, temporarily reviving the blue-collar economy.
A majority of infrastructure jobs (75%) would be for workers with no more than a high school diploma and some non-degreed short-term postsecondary training, while the remaining quarter of infrastructure jobs would require an associate’s degree or higher. Overall, an infrastructure program would create 8 million jobs for workers with a high school diploma or less, 4.8 million jobs for workers with more than a high school diploma but less than a bachelor’s degree, and 2.25 million jobs for workers with bachelor’s degrees and above.
Infrastructure jobs would be spread across the country. Blue states, which are more heavily populated, would gain 8.6 million jobs, and red states would gain 6.4 million jobs. There would be 2.7 million infrastructure jobs just in the seven closely contested states that were key to the outcome of the 2020 presidential election: Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin. By region, the Southeast stands to gain the largest share of infrastructure jobs—nearly 3.4 million, or 22% of jobs—while the Rocky Mountain states would gain the smallest share, with 642,000 jobs.
“Creating jobs is just the first step,” lead report author and CEW Director Anthony P. Carnevale said. “Without a jobs training program, we won’t be able to prepare workers to fill them.”
Of the jobs created through the infrastructure program, 60% would require six months of training or less, and 40% would require more than six months of training. In general, the jobs that would require the highest level of educational attainment would require the most training. The postsecondary education system administers a majority of certificate, training, and noncredit programs that will be essential to train workers to take on these jobs. Expanding Pell Grant eligibility to include short-term occupational training programs, as proposed in the 2019 JOBS Act, could lead to significant increases in student enrollment and completion.
Apprenticeship programs could be one of the primary ways to train workers for infrastructure jobs. In 2020, about 42% of apprenticeship programs were already training workers for infrastructure-related occupations. Active apprentices only represent a fraction of the workforce (0.4%), but their numbers have been growing rapidly in recent years—new apprentices increased by 128% in the last decade.
While an infrastructure program would boost the economy as a whole, it would disproportionately help employ Black and Latino workers, who have faced higher shares of job losses in the recession. It would also primarily benefit men, who currently hold 90% of infrastructure jobs and are likely to fill a majority of jobs created. An infrastructure package would not lead to the recovery of the 9.5 million jobs still unrecovered from the recession that began in March 2020, because these would be different types of jobs. The infrastructure plan, therefore, may not be of great help to women, who have lost more jobs than men during the recession relative to their share of employment.
“In the interest of gender parity, any infrastructure proposal should ensure the new infrastructure jobs are more accessible to women than they have ever been in the past,” report author and CEW Chief Economist Nicole Smith said.
Beyond creating jobs, an infrastructure program would have multiplier effects. It would spur consumption and lower transportation costs while improving reliability of clean water, electricity, and broadband services. Specifically, an infrastructure stimulus would expand broadband internet access to 21.3 million more Americans. These long-term returns could mean increasing GDP by as much as $320 billion per year as long as the stimulus plan continues.
Other Key Findings
- An infrastructure program would create 3.2 million jobs in the Pacific Coastal region, 2.8 million jobs in the Midwest, 2.4 million jobs in the Mid-Atlantic, 1.9 million jobs in the Southwest, and 713,000 jobs in New England.
- Of the Americans who would receive broadband services as a result of infrastructure spending, 4.2 million are Black, 6 million are Latino, and 11.1 million are White.
- Infrastructure jobs for workers with no more than a high school diploma would be concentrated in transportation and material moving occupations, which would be about 60% of all infrastructure jobs created or saved.
- Infrastructure jobs for workers with an associate’s degree or higher would be concentrated in engineering and protective services, managerial, and business and financial operations occupations.
To view the full report, visit cew.georgetown.edu/Infrastructure.
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The Georgetown University Center on Education and the Workforce (CEW) is an independent, nonprofit research and policy institute that studies the links among individual goals, education and training curricula, and career pathways. CEW is affiliated with the Georgetown University McCourt School of Public Policy. For more information, visit cew.georgetown.edu. Follow CEW on Twitter @GeorgetownCEW, Facebook, YouTube, LinkedIn, and Medium.