For ten plus years, the conversation has been around the shortage of workers for the construction industry and the aging out of many more, with a weak talent pipeline ahead. That problem has been solved; we just can’t quite see it yet.
The situation analysis breaks down like this:
- Mommy, daddy, teachers, school counselors, and society have been operating on a formula of “go to college, get a degree, get a good job, live an above average life = success in America”. That’s now over–and the smart ones see it. The promise of the collegiate path for cost to value to security is broken. “Johnny, have you considered the trades as an option?”
- Only 181K jobs were created last year vs 1.4 million the year previous; no entry-level white-collar jobs for college grads, major corporations cutting workforces, projections of a white-collar employment bloodbath. The AI Great Displacement has begun. The CEO of Verizon says maybe 10-20% white-collar unemployment by 2030. That is some serious societal, economic, and political uncertainty. And we are the safest bet out there.
- The new employment game plan: AI-proof your career.
- Entering construction and the trades is that game plan. Gen Z has the highest interest in the trades in 25 years and is not going to be getting their (soon to be useless) Computer Science degrees anymore.
It’s going to take a minute, but the construction industry is about to get all the talent it will ever need. New kids, mid-career changers, job pivots. Last week, at one of my keynotes, a Superintendent told me his best friend just dropped out of college the month before to become an electrician. It is coming and a lot faster than anyone thinks.
So, we won’t have a workforce shortage for very much longer. We will have a screening, learning, development, and retraining challenge. We are going to get a finer degree of raw talent material than ever before, and the employers that understand how to screen, leverage, and develop that advantage are going to be the ones who thrive. Out of the box talent repurposing is not the easy path, but perhaps the one that pays the highest dividends.
This is not to say that construction is going to be the bulletproof career option. I wouldn’t want to be an estimator or administrator in three years. For a jobsite reality check, take a look at the new Atlas 3 robot by Boston Dynamics (owned by Hyundai, whose stock is up 60% since it was introduced early this year), and you can see material handling, brick laying, drywall, traffic flagging, equipment operation, and a lot more being absorbed.
All that said, it is time to stop hand-wringing about the construction workforce aging out and get busy on a new plan for your organization. AI is here. The promise is broken. And we are the next destination.