It can take years to clean up and repair a home in Florida after a natural disaster like a hurricane. What makes it worse is the state's chronic shortage of construction workers.

For a Nov. 12, 2025, news report, Central Florida Public Media recently visited an Orlando-based program that trains military veterans to help with home reconstruction after destructive storms. The initiative was made possible through a partnership between the Home Builders Institute (HBI) in Orlando and Team Rubicon, a nationwide veteran's nonprofit and humanitarian aid organization.

Tim Zander was in the military for nine years. When he left, he was looking for structure and a way to give back. He ended up finding what he was looking for in carpentry.

"It's always been in the back of my mind. My grandpa was a carpenter. I've always enjoyed working with my hands," he said.

But it was Zander's wife who encouraged him to train to become a carpenter and enroll in the free nine-week carpentry and roofing training program offered by the HBI and Team Rubicon. He had already been helping friends and family members make repairs around their homes.

"My wife, she's a veteran too. She talked to me about it and said, ‘You know, you should just go for it,'" Zander said.

He and 14 other trainees will graduate from the program Nov. 21. Each one will get a federal Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) trade certificate as well as help finding an apprenticeship and a job.

Zander said he is ready to help his community once he completes the program. And that, according to Alex Gomez, HBI's associate vice president of academies, is preciously the goal of the program.

The program in which Zander enrolled is in its first year and is designed to assist veterans with the transition back to civilian life, while also producing workers who can help repair and rebuild homes after natural disasters.

Gomez said veterans learn the basics of carpentry and roofing, and review the math needed to be successful during the first few weeks of the program.

An introductory class teaches them about tool identification and basic math since they must know how to use a tape measure, how to use decimals and multiplication and understand how, as Gomez said, "to measure twice [and] cut once."

From there, the program's students learn how to build hurricane resilient homes in a shop using smaller models of homes and roofs.

"So, throughout the whole nine weeks, they spend 20 percent of that time in the classroom, and about 80 percent in the shop," said Gomez.

The hands-on training teaches them how to build a roof, lay down tiles and fortify houses to withstand hurricane winds of more than 150 mph. Their instructors are industry trained, he said, and have been in the field for more than 20 years.

When they leave the program, students can walk directly into an apprenticeship and a job in construction — a crucial point as Florida currently suffers from a shortage of these workers.

Number of Lost Construction Workers Staggering

In 2025 alone, according to the Associated Builders and Contractors of Florida (ABC), the industry has seen a reduction of 400,000 construction workers.

Recent data from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics found that central Florida's Brevard County placed fourth among the state's counties that lost the most construction workers to early retirement or other reasons. Brevard lost 8.96 percent of its skilled workers between the first quarter of 2024 and the first quarter of 2025.

An aging workforce, low pay, dangerous work conditions and an uptick in immigration enforcement in the state are to blame for the labor shortage.

Dave Sobush with the Florida College Access Network, an organization that helps young people find educational options beyond high school, said there are more students going into the skilled trades in Florida, but not enough to make up for everyone leaving the industry.

Skilled trades workers need to complete apprenticeships, which can take three to four years to finish. Apprentices also start out making a lower salary and have to pay for tools and other materials. That can discourage students and families who might opt instead for a higher-paying job directly out of high school, Sobush noted.

The reality is that jobs in every industry will require training moving forward, including in the trades, Sobush explained. He said that it is better to make the commitment in high school because it will pay off later, rather than trying to secure a construction job without anything other than a high school diploma or GED.

"You don't necessarily walk off the graduation stage and into the foreman's office the following day," he said. "Jobs require training beyond high school, and sometimes that training occurs in conjunction with high school [through] career dual enrollment, which students do at the same time they're taking their regular courses. [For] our skilled trades it is in the form of an apprenticeship, which is a partnership between an employer and a sponsoring entity."

He added that the administration of Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis has placed an emphasis on workforce training and education programs. According to the Florida Department of Education, $105 million has been awarded to high schools and colleges preparing students for a career in the trades through the Florida Pathways to Career Opportunities Grant.

DeSantis has committed more than $10 billion to workforce education and training in his two terms in office. In Florida, there are nearly 800,000 K-12 career and technical education students and 22,444 registered apprentices and pre-apprentices.

Some experts, though, warn that it is not enough.

Hurricane Repairs Are Falling Behind

Seminole County Emergency Manager Alan Harris told Central Florida Public Media if a shortage of construction workers is not soon fixed, it will make homeowners with hurricane damage have to wait longer for repairs.

In Seminole, people were impacted by Hurricane Milton in 2024, followed by other storms and flooding events in 2025; lost construction labor has made it difficult for affected residents to recover.

"We've been in a minor flood stage a couple times already this year," he said. "[Additionally], we had an EF-2 tornado, one of the stronger tornadoes to hit Seminole County in the last couple of decades. So, that created additional work on top of the [repairs that were] already taking place from Hurricane Ian and Nicole in 2022."

Harris said in 2025, it's not just a shortage of construction workers that is causing delays in home repairs and rebuilds. It's other factors too, including a shortage of federal workers and rising tariffs on building supplies and materials, to name just a couple.

Back at the HBI in Orlando, veteran and student Tim Zander said there is nothing else he would rather be doing.

"I would say it's in my blood," he happily said.