WASHINGTON—Citing recent employment gains in the telecommunications, transportation, energy, and solid waste management sectors, a report released Tuesday by the Bureau of Labor Statistics revealed that the sluggish economy is leading an increasing number of Americans to take jobs as infrastructure. “As job openings in traditional industries continue to fall short of expectations, many Americans have determined that their best option is to take up work as support equipment like wind turbines, telephone poles, and highway guardrails,” said lead researcher Calvin Mueller, noting that the number of adults currently serving as some form of load-bearing structure has grown by 38 percent since 2007. “Additionally, we found that Americans are inclined to relocate to secure gainful work, as reflected by the trend of unemployed citizens of the Upper Midwest and Plains States moving to North Dakota in the hopes of finding work as fiber-optic cables. While few of these people have experience shuttling data between two points at the speed of light, most have reported a willingness to learn a new skill and be buried three feet below ground in order to improve their employment prospects.” Mueller added that infrastructure employment appeared poised for continued growth, noting that California’s proposed high-speed train system alone could create as many as 200,000 railroad-track jobs.

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