Viewpoints
By: Deborah Kish, Vice President of Workforce Development and Research, Fiber Broadband Association
A “gray wave” of retiring fiber-optic technicians hitting retirement age is adding to the industry’s workforce challenges. Here’s what the Fiber Broadband Association (FBA) is doing to help.
The excitement of better, faster, more reliable broadband networks is in the air with the first state The Broadband Equity, Access, and Deployment (BEAD) Program plans approved by the National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA) and many others under review. With lots of private capital funding opportunities for long-term returns on investment in upgrading existing copper telco and coax plants, and carriers of all sizes putting in their own money, 2024 and beyond should be boom times for 21st Century network construction.
But there’s always a “but” in the most optimistic of scenarios, and the “but” here is finding enough qualified and trained fiber technicians to fill the growing number of jobs over the next five years. The telecommunications industry is going to have to work hard to build a pipeline of people who want to be fiber technicians. The industry will have to train them to do the necessary jobs, to pull and splice fiber and connect households and businesses. And the clock is ticking.
Adding to the challenge is a “gray wave” of retiring fiber technicians who built, operated, maintained, and upgraded today’s fiber networks. They’ve been climbing poles, going into manholes, and splicing up homes and buildings for decades, and it’s time for them to enjoy their golden years at a time when, ironically, there is more gold flowing into the industry than ever before.
The Fiber Broadband Association is doing its part in priming the pump to add more fiber technicians. The deep knowledge and hands-on OpTIC Path™ fiber technician training program created by FBA has been approved as the Primary Fiber Optic Technician Credential for Job Corps with plans to offer the program throughout the United States. The FBA is currently engaged with over 40 states, 44 service providers, and 70 community colleges and training institutions to roll out the OpTIC Path™ program. It is gaining support in electrical cooperatives and with employers across the fiber broadband industry. The FBA also continues to work closely with schools and training facilities, so they can hire certified technicians as soon as they are ready to enter the workforce.
In the months to come, you will hear more about FBA outreach efforts in STEM, HBCUs, and other areas to build youth and diversity in the recruitment pipeline for fiber technicians. Efforts will involve attempting to reach at-risk and disadvantaged populations. In recent years, the K-12 education system has favored coding and four-year colleges over vocational education and trade schools, but the nationwide shortage of labor in the U.S. requires a broader, more inclusive approach to fill skilled jobs that will pay good wages.
The industry needs to do its part as well, since we are running into a “chicken and egg” problem with labor, especially as community colleges and trade schools build curriculums to deliver qualified, field-ready hires that don’t need a lot of remedial training or certifications to be productive from day one. In this scenario, the “chickens” are fiber optic trainees or potential employees, and the “eggs” are training programs. Service providers or employers need to clearly define the number, types, and qualifications of jobs they’ll need in the years to come and invest in eggs (training), in order to gain enough qualified chickens (skilled technicians).
If that can happen, community colleges and trade schools can build the necessary and appropriate curriculums to deliver qualified technicians to the service providers that need them. For example, Mississippi community colleges are finding that contractors and fiber construction firms are looking for candidates who have OSHA training and a CDL license along with pole climbing skills and basic fiber knowledge.
Adding the OpTIC Path™ fiber technician training program to the structured curriculum rather than simply offering it as a stand-alone course provides a more field-ready candidate at much less on-the-job training expense for firms, versus simply hiring people with OSHA and CDLs and spending time and energy to train them in-house.
Once an appropriate curriculum is established, employers need to understand their work to develop a workforce isn’t done. To state the obvious, community colleges and trade schools need to understand how many people will be needed to go through and successfully complete the curriculum, which requires locating and allocating the appropriate resources, such as classrooms and skilled instructors.
As the pandemic taught us about supply chain, it takes time and resources to build things. This is just as true with workforce development as it is with any other needed supply. You can’t take an OSHA instructor and turn them into a qualified fiber-splicing trainer overnight, and odds are you won’t want to if OSHA training is a required part of the course curriculum.
If the fiber industry is to be truly successful over the next five years, employers are going to have put their cards on the table in terms of the number of skilled technicians they expect to hire in that timeframe. The industry will also have to clearly define the skills and certificates needed for those positions. That information needs to be communicated to the local community colleges and trade schools so they can prepare the people to fill those positions.
Otherwise, contractors and service providers are going to find themselves scrambling to train and fill positions in a few years, raising the cost of labor and leading to construction delays that could prove to be costly for all involved.
