(The Center Square) – Seattle’s program that prioritizes hiring workers from underserved communities to work on the city’s construction projects is seeing a retention rate of more than 50% for Black workers.
Priority Hire is Seattle’s designation for workers residing in underserved communities. It sets hiring requirements on the city’s large construction projects.
According to Seattle Department of Finance and Administrative Services Communications and Marketing Director Melissa Mixon, the program has placed 867 trained pre-apprentices and priority hire clients into construction careers in King County since 2016.
The Center Square requested annual statistics regarding the city’s Priority Hire program, but did not receive a response by the time of publication.
Pre-apprentices are defined as people who go through hands-on pre-apprenticeship training programs that prepare them for apprenticeships and careers in building trades.
According to Mixon, 56% of Black apprentices that enrolled in a regional construction apprenticeship program between 2018 and 2022 and received city-funded retention services were still active in or had completed their training by March of this year.
By comparison, 47% of Black/African-American apprentices who did not receive city-funded retention services were still active in or had completed their training in the same time period.
The program started in 2013. Since then, construction workers living in economically distressed communities have earned a collective $100.9 million in wages on Priority Hire projects. Most of these workers are people of color and women.
In 2016, the Priority Hire program began outreach, training and retention services to ensure a supply of Priority Hire workers on city projects.
The Seattle Department of Finance and Administrative Services pointed to continued investments into the Priority Hire program as a way to help boost retention rates through retention support and increased inclusion in the industry.
The city’s 2023-2024 Adopted Budget adds $1 million to continue its clean energy pre-apprenticeship scholarships with the goal of advancing its priority hire goals. The funds stem from the city’s JumpStart Payroll Expense Tax.
Recently, the City of Seattle announced $2.24 million in funding to recruit and place workers from underserved communities into construction and clean energy jobs.
Six awarded organizations will have to prioritize the placement of priority hire individuals into construction apprenticeship programs and clean energy jobs as a condition of the funding.
