The Labor Gap in Construction: Challenges and Opportunities
Since the 2008 financial crisis, housing construction has lagged — and it still hasn’t caught up. Add to that restrictive zoning, rising renovation and building costs, and aging homeowners who are staying put, and the result is persistent demand without the supply or workforce to meet it.
Today, the U.S. has about 8.3 million payroll construction workers. Of those, around 3.4 million work in residential construction, where the labor shortage is most acute. The root of the problem? Vocational and technical training programs have been chronically underfunded and culturally devalued, discouraging young people from entering the trades. Specialized skills like electrical, HVAC, and framing are particularly scarce — and the existing workforce is aging fast. By 2031, 41% of construction workers are expected to retire. In other words: we don’t just have a headcount problem — we have a skills transfer problem.
The Bureau of Labor and Statistics recently reported 374,000 open construction jobs — and that’s just to maintain the current workforce. Meeting rising demand will require an additional 450,000 to 700,000 workers.
Layered on top of that is the Trump administration’s publicly stated goal of deporting between 15 and 20 million individuals from the U.S. Many inter-related sectors — including construction, transportation, and manufacturing — rely heavily on immigrant labor, both documented and undocumented. According to government estimates and outside modeling, deportation at that scale could result in the loss of:
• 1.5 million workers from construction
• 870,000 from manufacturing
• 460,000 from transportation and warehousing
Expected Outcomes:
Continued housing shortages, project delays, and increased construction costs due to inflation in materials, logistics, and wages. States most dependent on immigrant labor (CA, TX, FL, NY) will be hit hardest.
If deportations proceed, we may eventually be forced to compete internationally to regain our lost workforce. Countries like Canada are taking the opposite approach — investing in upskilling their immigrant workforce to support their construction sector.
Emerging Opportunities:
Given the ongoing labor shortage, suppliers and dealers who invest in bringing skilled installation teams in-house may gain a competitive advantage. By doing so, they can better control project timelines and ensure quality standards are met. This model has been used successfully in the office furniture industry for years, where complex, large-scale installations demand tight coordination. Expect to see similar strategies adopted across other product categories as labor constraints persist.
