By Vanguard Staff
A severe and persistent shortage of construction workers is now one of the most significant factors driving the nation’s housing crisis, according to a contributor writing in the Los Angeles Times, eclipsing even zoning constraints and inflation as a barrier to producing enough homes.
In a recent opinion piece for the Los Angeles Times, Angelo Farooq argues that America’s inability to house its population is inseparable from a workforce gap that has gone largely unaddressed. “America’s housing crisis is no longer a looming threat: It’s here,” Farooq writes. “We simply don’t have enough construction workers to build the homes America needs.”
While public debate often focuses on land use rules, environmental review and interest rates, Farooq contends that labor shortages in the construction trades have become a binding constraint on housing production nationwide. Industry estimates cited in the column indicate the construction sector must add approximately 723,000 workers each year through 2028 merely to meet existing demand. Decades of declining investment in vocational education, he writes, have created a structural deficit that is already imposing steep costs.
Farooq points to an estimated $10.8 billion annual loss linked to delayed projects and homes that never get built. That cost, he argues, is not abstract. “That’s not a future risk; it’s a current cost for every American household in the form of higher rents and home prices,” he writes.
Drawing on his experience as a former chair of a state workforce board and now a partner in real estate development, Farooq describes a familiar pattern playing out across regions and markets. Young people seek economic opportunity while construction employers struggle to staff job sites. According to Farooq, contractors cannot find enough electricians, plumbers, framers or HVAC technicians, forcing projects to be postponed, downsized or abandoned entirely.
“This isn’t just a workforce challenge; it’s a housing and economic growth emergency,” Farooq writes, arguing that labor scarcity now ripples beyond construction into broader inflationary pressures and constrained growth.
At the same time, Farooq notes that construction now offers some of the strongest wage growth in the economy. Citing data from a newly-released Home Builders Institute report, he writes that average homebuilding wages rose more than 9% over the past year. He adds that the average nonsupervisory construction worker now earns more than $35 an hour, outpacing much of the private sector.
“The message from the market couldn’t be clearer,” Farooq writes. “There’s tremendous demand for builders, and incredible opportunity for anyone willing to learn the trades.”
Despite these incentives, Farooq notes that demographic trends continue to work against the industry. While women’s participation in construction has reached a 20-year high and more Generation Z workers are entering the field, those gains are not large enough to offset retirements and an aging workforce. The median construction worker is now in their 40s, and departures from the industry are accelerating, he writes.
Without intervention, Farooq warns that the gap between labor supply and housing demand will widen, slowing home production further and worsening affordability pressures. He argues that incremental reforms will not be sufficient given the scale of the challenge.
“The solution can only be a national workforce mobilization on the scale of the housing crisis itself,” Farooq writes.
He calls on federal and state governments to significantly expand funding for construction training through vocational schools, apprenticeships and partnerships with community colleges. Farooq also urges Congress to incorporate workforce dollars for the building trades into infrastructure and economic competitiveness legislation, similar to how federal policy has supported workforce development in the semiconductor industry.
The private sector, he writes, has a responsibility as well. Developers and builders should sponsor apprenticeship programs and establish clear career pathways, particularly for young workers and people from underrepresented communities.
Beyond policy and funding, Farooq argues the country needs a cultural shift in how work is valued and promoted. “For too long, America has pushed a ‘college or bust’ mindset that dismisses the trades as second-class options,” he writes, calling that attitude both inaccurate and economically damaging.
Trades, Farooq argues, remain central to middle-class stability and national growth. He calls carpenters, masons and electricians “nation builders in the truest sense” and suggests that a coordinated public-private messaging campaign could help change perceptions and draw more people into the field.
Farooq also challenges the notion that automation or artificial intelligence will meaningfully resolve the labor shortage in the near term. While acknowledging advances in design and construction technology, he writes that housing production remains dependent on skilled human labor. “Algorithms don’t frame houses or wire electrical systems,” he writes.
The consequences of inaction, Farooq warns, extend well beyond the construction industry. With the housing deficit already exceeding 1.5 million units nationally, he argues that continued labor shortages will further price households out of ownership, keep rents elevated and prolong inflationary pressures. Employers will struggle to fill jobs, and economic growth will slow.
Still, Farooq frames the crisis as one that is solvable with sufficient political will. Investing in people, he argues, has repeatedly allowed the country to overcome workforce bottlenecks, from wartime manufacturing efforts to the technology sector’s rise in recent decades.
“We can meet this moment too, by training and empowering the next generation of builders,” Farooq writes.
He closes with a warning that delay carries real and compounding costs. “The $10.8 billion we lose each year to labor shortages isn’t only theoretical,” he writes. “It is tangible in the rents that rise and the families waiting for a chance to build their future.”
Farooq is a general partner at AlphaX RE Capital and a former chairman of the National Association for State Workforce Board Chairs.
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It’s not a housing crisis. It was the immigration crisis caused by the Biden administration that’s causing a housing problem.
There was a housing crisis before Biden was even elected
Biden letting in many millions of immigrants (some estimates are as high as 10 million) has only made the problem much worse.