Complex Staffing Challenges Plague the Global Construction Industry: Report

Despite a packed development pipeline, nearly half of contractors across the world in 2025 added zero net headcount to their construction teams.

Toronto-based workforce planning platform Bridgit’s first-ever global construction workforce benchmark report revealed that the construction industry’s long-reported staffing woes go beyond labor shortages. 

The pressure is largely due to an aging workforce and a lack of skilled hires, rather than surplus demand. The economy-wide hiring slowdown hit the construction industry hard in February, with the rate of hiring falling to 3.3 percent, its slowest rate on record after April 2020, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.

Despite the slowdown, the industry reports that an uneven experience mix and high attrition rates are leaving project schedules in the lurch. Hiring skilled labor is a mounting concern as large numbers of experienced workers in the industry approach retirement, and the need for specialization in emerging sectors — like data centers — grows. 

Mallorie Brodie, Bridgit’s founder and CEO, told Commercial Observer that findings validated anecdotal accounts from contractors that finding talent to fill the market’s changing demands is a continual challenge. 

“They’re always looking to backfill folks that are leaving, in addition to growth requirements that they may have,” Brodie said.

Bridgit’s report collected workforce data from 233 companies and 114,000 people in the broader construction industry, and found that one in five construction workers leaves their company every year, and 46 percent of contractors added zero net headcount in 2025.

The Bridgit report documented an industry-wide attrition rate of nearly 20 percent, meaning that construction companies hiring 100 workers in order to grow should realistically expect to backfill with 125 hires just to stay even. Less tenured workers have a higher attrition rate. The average “rookie ratio,” or the number of team members with less than a year of company tenure versus longtime workers, averages 36.4 percent across the industry. 

“When you look at the data, it’s not necessarily that the volume of jobs in construction are increasing, it’s more that there’s this retirement trend, as well as skills that are required,” Brodie said.

More than 40 percent of the construction workforce from before 2020 is expected to retire by 2031, according to research by consulting firm McKinsey.

As demand for manufacturing and data centers grows, so too does the need for highly experienced, specialized hires, such as electricians with knowledge of precision wiring and mechanical workers trained to install advanced cooling systems, Engineering News-Record reported.

“The volume of people that need those skills is really changing because of the project mix that’s happening,” Brodie said. 

Industrial and manufacturing projects grew in 2025 by 68.1 percent year-over-year, the report’s survey of project-specific growth found. The large jump came against a backdrop of tariffs and other macroeconomic pressures. Transportation and infrastructure projects and data center projects grew 45.1 percent and 41.7 percent, respectively. 

Despite the acceleration in manufacturing projects, the sector sits near the bottom of the required team sizes and project durations, meaning those developments can stay relatively lean when it comes to workforce demands. Data centers, on the other hand, require large team sizes, which is putting mounting pressure on the industry. Solar projects, which also require a large workforce, fell 44.4 percent, and hospitality stayed basically flat.

The survey also discovered that commute times are one of the most overlooked liabilities for losing employees early. Depending on the project, workers might commute well over an hour to get to projects that last two or three years, Brodie said.

“I think this data really proves the point that companies need to be very proactive about this, and ideally working on initiatives that retain that talent,” Brodie said. “So you’re not always having to replace 20 percent of the staff before you even kind of think about adding headcount for growth.”

Emily Davis can be reached at edavis@commercialobserver.com.