North America's Building Trades Unions have launched a program to help strengthen the future of the construction industry in the national capital region. The program is called CHOICE—the Community Hub for Opportunities in Construction Employment—and aims to fill the shortage of skilled construction workers through training in Baltimore, Washington, D.C., and surrounding areas in Maryland and Northern Virginia.

CHOICE is designed to target underprivileged groups in this region, including youths, women, minorities, and transitioning veterans. Currently, the program is comprised of 28 building and construction trades local unions. These unions represent thousands of skilled professionals in the construction industry, and operate more than 20 skilled craft apprenticeship training centers across the region.

CHOICE has garnered the attention of the Clinton Global Initiative, which has joined CHOICE in its movement toward filling the construction industry skills gap. During the next five years, CHOICE and the Clinton Global Initiative will seek to empower youths through a registered apprenticeship system with expert construction professionals at its helm. The goal of this apprenticeship is to serve 125 unemployed youths between the ages of 18 and 24 in the next five years.

CHOICE Executive Director Mark Coles is confident that the overarching goal of closing the construction trades skills gap and putting people back to work will be a success.

"Our building trades unions have an excellent track record of implementing these types of structured, apprenticeship-readiness programs in close cooperation with local government and community leaders in metropolitan areas such as Milwaukee, New York, Boston, Seattle, Los Angeles, and most recently, Detroit," he says. "We are excited to launch such a program in the national capital region."