WASHINGTON, D.C. — The U.S. construction industry’s workforce shortage has grown so severe that it now threatens the nation’s economic stability and even its security, industry leaders said during the Elevate 2025 conference at the National Building Museum on Sept. 4.
“When you look across the entirety of the built environment, the gap that is created has risen to the level of a national security issue and requires us, as a country, to look hard, to look deep, to make sure that we are doing what is necessary,” said George Guszcza, president and CEO of the National Institute of Building Sciences.
Speakers emphasized that the problem goes beyond construction firms struggling to staff jobsites — it threatens the U.S.’s ability to execute large-scale infrastructure, manufacturing, and defense projects tied to reshoring and competitiveness.
Panelists agreed that immigration and visa programs must be modernized to help bridge the gap. Outdated processes and bureaucratic hurdles are leaving employers without access to needed labor.
“It was very important to our farmers, ranchers and producers and many others who use any of the H-programs, that they knew how to navigate the system. They need it cheaper and faster,” said Labor Secretary Lori Chavez-DeRemer, referring to H-1B and H-2B visas. “Those things need to be accessible to the people who are using the systems we have in place.”
The lack of reform, speakers warned, could stall billions of dollars of active federal and private projects.
Leaders also pointed to veterans as an underutilized resource. Programs such as SkillBridge, Hiring Our Heroes, and new partnerships with Lowe’s aim to help service members transition into construction careers.
Elizabeth O’Brien, senior vice president at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce Foundation, said these initiatives give veterans a chance to bring discipline, leadership, and technical skills to the building trades.
Some groups are going further. Tanya Wattenburg Komas, CEO of the Concrete Preservation Institute, proposed using national parks as training hubs for transitioning service members. Past efforts have included hands-on preservation work at the Pearl Harbor National Memorial and Alcatraz Island.
The approach could both train new workers and help address the National Park Service’s $22 billion maintenance backlog, she noted.
Even when veterans transition successfully, keeping them in the industry is difficult.
“Nearly half of veterans leave their first civilian job within a year,” said Shirley Albritton, vice president of Department of Defense Programs and Services with the National Institute of Building Sciences.
Albritton urged contractors to collaborate across firms so workers who leave one employer aren’t lost to the industry entirely. Retaining talent at the industry level, she said, is more important than focusing narrowly on one company’s workforce.
The shortage also intersects with long-standing gender disparities. Women remain significantly underrepresented in construction, and many leave the field due to poor workplace culture.
The perception of construction as “dirty, difficult, dangerous and dead-end” remains a barrier, said Branka Minic, CEO of Building Talent Foundation.
Ellen Thorp, managing director at the Coalition for Sustainable Roofing, said women need visible role models who can demonstrate career longevity and work-life balance.
A recent survey from the National Center for Construction Education and Research and Ambition Theory found 68% of women cite poor leadership as a reason they leave the industry.
The scale of the shortage continues to grow. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, open construction jobs rose 26% by the end of July, reaching the highest level in more than a year.
Without systemic solutions, panelists warned, U.S. contractors may be unable to deliver the very projects driving economic growth and national resilience.
“Shovels cannot break ground if no one’s there to hold them,” Guszcza said — a reminder that the future of American infrastructure may hinge as much on workforce strategy as on engineering.
originally reported by Matthew Thibault in Construction Dive.
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