Dive Brief:

• The construction industry is conducting an all-fronts offensive to persuade young people that building buildings and infrastructure is not the back-breaking, dirty, low-tech work today's teens think it is.
• The campaign is using social media, online videos, digital and print ads and even trading cards to get the game-playing generation to consider careers in the industry.
• The National Center for Construction Education and Research is running point on the effort and spent about $260,000 on it in 2013.

Dive Insight:

For a generation raised with technology, the industry talks up the use of computers, GPS-based equipment, building information modeling and other new tools. There is also, however, an effort to recruit for the traditional trades that contractors say are in painfully short supply.