Our organizations are suffering from a labor shortage. While the number of open, unfilled positions in the construction industry can vary by season, overall U.S. construction faces a staggering amount of open, unfilled positions every month—roughly, 500,000. This shortage contributes to rising job costs and longer project timelines, not to mention increased competition for employees amongst all of us in the industry.
Factors for Labor Shortage
Experts cite a variety of factors for the growing construction labor shortage, which range from the U.S. needing more laborers to rebuild infrastructure; increased wages in the service sectors attracting younger generations to (what they perceive as) “safer,” indoor jobs; and fewer trade programs being offered in high schools. Delving further into U.S. labor statistics reveals another key data point about employment in the construction industry: women comprise 48% of the U.S. labor force, but only 11% of workers in construction. And within construction, women account for only 3.3% of workers in the trades.
CCI recently held its first working session to investigate our organization’s 2025 Initiative: What should we do or change in order to encourage more women to enter construction?
Increasing Females in Construction
During our dialogue, we examined statistics, such as national pay rates for workers without a bachelor’s degree. The construction industry pays the highest average hourly wages for workers with less than a bachelor’s degree and about $5/hour more than the largest employment sector for women without a bachelor’s degree (the education and health services industry). We also discussed the misperception that construction sites offer only “dirty jobs” and intense physical labor—which is simply not true for much trade work, given technological advancements, nor are CCI’s project sites “dirty” places. And we considered the fact that females comprise a higher percentage of enlisted members of the U.S. Army (15%) than the construction industry, then wondered: Why are more women choosing to, potentially, enter combat, rather than work construction?
What needs to shift within our society or in the construction industry to bring more women into our organizations? Is America’s societal history during WWII—when women entered factory positions and succeeded—perhaps, instructive here?
Industry Changes
We at Colarelli Construction are trying to understand what changes our industry can enact in order to recruit and retain more women in our workforce, especially into the trades. What action steps have your organizations taken, and have they yielded results? What do you think needs to change socially or for our industry? We would appreciate others weighing in on this dialogue as we continue to explore this initiative throughout 2025.
Our Next Meeting
For our next working session, we plan to host a roundtable to hear from women in the field; please reach out to us if you would like to participate or join us for that event.