Giving Compass' Take:

• As the skilled labor market grows, more and more students are heading straight to college and leaving those job empty. 

• How can philanthropy support alternative pipelines? How can colleges better support students with different paths? 

• Learn how short, specialized education tracks can provide middle-class jobs in clean energy. 

In a new report, the Washington State Auditor found that good jobs in the skilled trades are going begging because students are being universally steered to bachelor’s degrees. Among other things, the auditor recommended that career guidance — including about choices that require less than four years in college — start as early as the seventh grade.

Seventy-percent of construction companies nationwide are having trouble finding qualified workers, according to the Associated General Contractors of America; in Washington, the proportion is 80 percent. There are already at least 3,259 more jobs than Washingtonians to fill them in such skilled trades as carpentry, electrical, plumbing, sheet-metal work and pipe-fitting, the state auditor reports. Many pay more than the Washington average annual wage of $54,000. Of 260,000 “career jobs” expected to become available here over the next five years, according to the Washington Roundtable, an association of employers, one-third will not require bachelor’s degrees.

The number of workers needed in the construction trades nationally is expected to rise 11 percent through 2026, far faster than other occupations, or by 747,600 new jobs, the Bureau of Labor Statistics says. Construction, along with health care and personal care, will account for one-third of all new jobs through 2022, the agency says.

It also predicts that, between now and 2022, there will be a need for 138,200 new plumbers. While 7,000 people become electricians every year, about 9,000 retire, according to the National Electrical Contractors Association; by 2021, the nation will have to turn out 17,557 new electricians annually. And as politicians debate a massive overhaul of the nation’s roads, bridges and airports, the U.S. Department of Education reports that there will be 68 percent more job openings in infrastructure-related fields in the next five years than there are people training to fill them.

Read the full article about skilled labor by Jon Marcus at The Hechinger Report.