Colorado officials are in the throes of organizing a broadband workforce development effort to be centered on pre-construction, construction, and post-construction maintenance work.
The effort, spearheaded by the Colorado Broadband Office, is coming ahead of the estimated $826 million that the Centennial State will soon be receiving through the federal Broadband, Equity, Access, and Deployment program.
That $826 million is part of a significantly larger $42.5 billion in available funding announced by the White House earlier this summer and designed to build broadband networks across the country.
The federal funding for Colorado dovetails with the state’s declared goal of seeing up to 99% of households connected to high-speed internet within the next four years.
Earlier studies have indicated that as of the end of last year, just over 90% of homes and businesses in Colorado were thus connected, a figure that means some 190,000 such entities are still unconnected.
Working with the state’s Office of the Future Work, the Colorado Broadband Office has released a document called the Broadband Workforce Plan whose stated goal is to “promote digital equity,” while also creating thousands of well-paying jobs.
The document additionally notes: “There is an opportunity to engage younger generations in the telecommunications and construction industry to prepare for the expected retirements of the older workers that make up a significant portion of the workforce.”
The document also tackles the question of where, or in what parts of the state, a new broadband workforce will be located. “Given the concentration of the workforce in more metropolitan areas, it is important to consider strategies that engage the rural workforce,” while additionally hoping to create a more diverse workforce than a current one which is “predominantly white and male.”
The emphasis on just one demographic, the report suggests, “means there are untapped pools of talent that could contribute to reducing the workforce shortages.”
As it now stands there are roughly 46,000 workers in Colorado’s construction and telecommunications industry who are 55 years of age and above; compared with around 8,400 who are aged between 19 and 24.
Similarly, while around 185,000 workers in those two industries are white, less than 20,000 could be classified as people of color.
It is thought that Colorado’s broadband construction efforts in the immediate years to come will see the creation of around 3,600 new jobs.
By Garry Boulard
