A non-profit trade group in Pittsburgh, Pa., has launched a 10-week hardscape training program for young people in the area, providing at-risk youth with a career path and addressing the labor shortage in the construction and homebuilding industries. About 2.1 million construction jobs were lost from December 2007 through January 2011, when industry employment hit its lowest level since 1996.

Recent slowing in the housing market has highlighted fundamental problems in the industry's already-sluggish recovery, including a glaring lack of skilled labor in the construction trade. Stephen Shelton, owner of Shelton Masonry & Contracting and founder of the Trade Institute of Pittsburgh, is tackling the problem at its source.

The Trade Institute, founded in 2008, is a 501(c)3 nonprofit that provides 10 weeks of brick-laying and hardscape construction training to its students, focusing on people with troubled pasts. Forty-two people have been placed into full-time jobs since the institute's inception, including five at Shelton's company.

More than half the construction companies surveyed by the National Association of Home Builders said labor constraints over the past six months have caused them to pay higher wages or bids for subcontractors and, consequently, raise prices on projects. A March survey showed that 46 percent had experienced delays completing projects.

"The housing recovery will be a modest one, not only because the overall economy is moving relatively slow, but because rebuilding the infrastructure of the homebuilding industry is taking time," said David Crowe, NAHB chief economist. "The labor shortage has been a contributing factor."

Regional labor shortages have also been cited in the Federal Reserve's Beige Book reports on regional economic situations and in builders' earning calls. "Builders are facing problems, as the long housing recession has disrupted the supply chain for materials and the pool of skilled workers," the Philadelphia district noted in the June Beige Book.

More information on the Trade Institute of Pittsburgh is available here.