The Michigan section of the American Society of Civil Engineers provides an annual report on the state of Michigan’s infrastructure. Michigan’s 2023 grade is a C-, which is only marginally better than its 2022 grade of D+. One area in which Michigan has not improved is its energy infrastructure. The state received a solid D. This is a decrease from 2017 and 2013, when the state received a C- for its energy production and transmission capacity. But the report points to one area for economic potential: infrastructure jobs.
The infrastructure report is useful on a lot of levels. It keeps a running tally of how well the state manages its critical functions – roads and bridges, telecommunications, railways, parks, drinking water, schools, transit, and so on. (Just in case you’re wondering, the grade for Michigan’s roads improved from a D- in 2017 to a D in 2023.)
Michigan received D+ or lower in the following areas:
- Bridges, D+
- Drinking water, D+
- Roads, D
- Energy, D
- Stormwater, D
These areas require substantial investment to see improvements. As such, they offer economic opportunities to create public and private infrastructure jobs. Creating academic programs for workers in these fields can yield benefits for Michigan’s communities and for the state overall.
Training for water and wastewater treatment technicians would enable students to take jobs with both public and private employers. Wastewater treatment is absolutely necessary in manufacturing facilities that use or contaminate water in their production processes. There is substantial demand for environmental science and environmental protection technicians. These occupations require an associate degree and offer a median annual salary of about $50,000. I have written extensively about the need for energy technicians in all areas of energy production, but especially in the field of renewable energy technologies.
Infrastructure jobs are needed now and in the future
Infrastructure jobs in these fields pay a great salary and are in high demand. Since every state needs to generate its own energy, these infrastructure jobs have the added benefit of being stable.
Civil engineering technicians will be in demand in response to the massive infrastructure investments at the federal level. Reconstruction of bridges, roads, and dams will all be high priority projects and will require trained local workers to fill a growing number of infrastructure jobs.
Even in areas of the report where Michigan received a grade of C- or better, there are still plenty of opportunities for career education. Last week, Delta Airlines just agreed to reduce by 10% the number of flights in and out of John F. Kennedy and LaGuardia Airports in New York, Newark Liberty International Airport in New Jersey, and Reagan International Airport in Washington, D.C. The reduction is not because passenger demand is soft. In fact, passenger travel is near a historical peak. The airline – along with United, JetBlue and American – are voluntarily decreasing flights to and from these cities because there are not enough air traffic controllers to manage them all.
Guess what kind of degree an air traffic controller needs? Yep. An associate degree. The median salary for an air traffic controller is $130,000. Because of the nature of the work, an air traffic controller’s hours are restricted and the profession has a mandatory retirement age of 46.
(It’s almost as though you could attract young men and women to your classrooms by opening a program that pays them $130,000 per year or more on a two-year degree. And they might even be able to find work wherever they want.)
WCC doesn’t offer career education in any of these fields. Yet another missed opportunity for economic advancement.
Photo Credit: Mike Fritcher , via Flickr
