Teen in upstate New York participating in summer apprenticeship through Questar III BOCES, which matches would-be apprentices with local builders and other companies that need blue collar workers, area already getting job offers even though they haven’t graduated.
One company is offering up to $47 an hour.
Chris DiStefano, who owns Harrison & Burrowes Bridge Constructors in Glenmont, New York says “we’ve hired three or four young men and women who have come in with the summertime and we’ve hired them right out of high school.”
DiStefano’s company builds bridges, among other jobs.
The pay is good. He says laborers get more than $35 an hour. Heavy equipment operators make more than $47 an hour.
He says one of the perks is that they only work 9-months of the year.
DiStefano says he and a number of other businesses are trying to get the word out to students that there are good options that do not require an expensive, four-year college degree.