LA’s community colleges race to train construction workers for wildfire rebuilding

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Los Angeles is facing a construction workforce crunch that has intensified after the Palisades Fire and the Eaton fire, leaving rebuilding and related construction work dependent in part on new training pipelines, according to a state analysis cited by CalMatters and reported by the Associated Press. The analysis estimates the city needs over 100,000 new workers in construction and construction-related careers, and it places median pay at just under $30 an hour, with variation based on position and experience.

One example is Hudson Idov, who enrolled in the carpentry program at Los Angeles Trade-Technical College less than a week after graduating high school, after his home burned down in the Palisades Fire. Idov said the move reflected both a personal need to help rebuild and a view that carpentry is a high-demand field, laying out “big, big 10-year plans” during a break in morning class.

Before the fires, Los Angeles was already short roughly 70,000 qualified construction workers, the report says, and the destruction of thousands of homes and businesses made the gap worse. Jaime Alvarez, Idov’s carpentry instructor, said the school cannot produce enough workers fast enough, adding, “We can’t put out enough people,” as students hammered, sawed and drilled around him. This semester, Alvarez has about 30 students, and the four-semester carpentry program is described as likely the largest of its kind in the state, enrolling over 1,800 people per year.

At Los Angeles Trade-Technical College, the carpentry program is built around a timeline of roughly two years and about 25 hours a week of coursework. Idov’s schedule starts at 7 a.m., ends around noon, and he also works part time for a general contractor in the afternoons. The curriculum includes building concrete foundations and drilling rebar into them, along with constructing building frames for fire-damaged areas, where the report says extreme heat can leave concrete brittle and unstable.

School leaders and instructors said the programs are under pressure not only to train large cohorts, but also to provide enough supplies. Abigail Patton, the vice president of academic affairs, said the construction, maintenance and utilities programs together have an annual budget of over $10 million, but most of that goes to staff salaries, leaving just over $575,000 for supplies used by students. She said a state grant for fire recovery would help supplement supply costs, including concrete used in Alvarez’s class.

The state funding behind that supply support is tied to recent wildfire-recovery awards. Last year, the state awarded five Los Angeles community colleges a total of $5 million to train additional workers for Palisades and Eaton recovery, and the report says the money only recently arrived at Los Angeles Trade-Technical College. It also says Pasadena City College, a few miles northeast of Los Angeles Trade-Tech, is using part of the money to build a 55,000-square-foot center for construction training.

While new money is arriving for supplies and curriculum, the report describes other funding that has recently fallen through, adding to training challenges. In 2024, the college was set to receive $2 million through a $20 million federal grant from the Environmental Protection Agency, part of which would have gone to the Coalition for Responsible Community Development, an economic development organization based in south Los Angeles; the EPA disbursed just over $88,000 before cancelling the remainder last May after President Trump took office. Environmental justice groups filed a lawsuit appealing the Trump administration’s decision, and the Coalition for Responsible Community Development declined to comment, while an EPA press secretary, Brigit Hirsch, said in an email to CalMatters that the Biden-Harris Administration “shouldn’t have forced its radical agenda of wasteful DEI programs and ‘environmental justice’ priorities on the EPA’s core mission,” adding, “Thankfully, those days are over.”

In the classroom, instructors say training can be in high demand but graduation timelines remain difficult for many students. The report says some short-term community college construction certificates can lead to high-paying jobs, including some over $40 an hour, and that programs including carpentry, electrical maintenance and welding are popular and often at capacity. However, it also says Idov’s school has data showing that about 33% of students who started in 2021 at Los Angeles Trade-Tech’s construction, maintenance and utilities programs completed a certificate, degree, or transferred to a university within four years, and it notes that low graduation rates are common at community colleges where many students balance work and caregiving.

Nicole Jordan, who teaches the first semester of the carpentry program, said the effort is not just about swinging a hammer, telling students, “We do a lot of math and a lot of book work,” and describing how they begin with blueprint study and Los Angeles building codes before building anything. Jordan said there is also a sense of community in the program, including a classroom “cheer” before instruction begins, as students vary in age and ethnic background and work toward building homes over four semesters if they stay in the program.