Summary: Hiring skilled tradespeople is brutal: 700,000+ unfilled construction positions, average workforce age of 55, and half of contractors turning down work due to staffing. Make sure your wages are competitive—skilled trades are harder to find than MBAs.
Hiring Challenges in the Skilled Trades World
This is news to no one - but hiring skilled positions is rough. As a country, we've prioritized the 'college for all' path for decades, and we are now starting to pay the price. Careers like Plumber, Electrician, Carpenter, or HVAC Tech are often substantially more difficult to find than Software Engineers, Lawyers, or Accountants. Throw a rock 10 yards in any direction and you can hit an MBA. But a Journeyman HVAC Tech? Think again.
While this is generally well-understood, some further damning statistics:
- There are over 700,000 unfilled positions in residential construction alone
- The average age of our skilled trades workforce is 55 - nearly a decade older than the average working American
- 1 in 2 contractors across the US has reported having to turn down work due to not having the staff.