Page 3 of the 2026 AGC and NCCER Workforce Survey national results shows a bar labeled Electricians (103 firms). Next to it, 81 percent. That number does not mean what most people who repeat it think. Search construction labor shortage 2026 and almost everything that comes back is written for the people doing the hiring.
Here is the same survey read from the worker's side. One caution. Nobody in it is a worker. AGC surveyed firms, and managers did the talking.
Construction labor shortage 2026: what the survey actually measured
The Associated General Contractors of America and NCCER fielded the survey in July and August 2026 and released it September 3. AGC counted 1,830 people who answered at least one part of it and reports the results as percentages of firms.
Two numbers get collapsed into one. Eighty-seven percent of firms report openings for hourly craft workers, and 82 percent report openings for salaried positions. That is who has openings. The next figure measures whether hiring got harder, and it counts only firms with craft openings. Among firms with craft openings, 88 percent say those jobs are as hard or harder to fill than a year ago, including 50 percent who say harder. Put plainly, half the firms already looking say the search got worse in twelve months. That is a smaller claim than 88 percent of contractors being unable to find anyone.
That second number is the one to bring up when you ask for more money.
The survey does not say the industry is booming. Thirty-seven percent of respondents cut headcount by at least five percent over the past year, against 34 percent that grew by that much. "This is the first year since we came out of the pandemic that we saw more firms reducing than increasing headcount," says Ken Simonson, chief economist at AGC of America. Still, 73 percent expect to add employees over the next 12 months, and the growth sits with the big outfits, since 79 percent of firms doing more than $500 million of work a year grew headcount by at least five percent.
The hardest construction jobs to fill in 2026
Electricians came in first at 81 percent, then mechanics at 79, HVAC technicians at 77 and concrete workers at 76. Pipelayers and plumbers sit at 75, sheet metal workers and cement masons at 74, pipefitters and welders counted as one line at 73. Ironworkers and crane and heavy equipment operators tie at 70. Laborers are lowest, 51 percent.
Read those as rates. AGC prints the base beside each craft, and the bases at the top of the list are thin. The 81 percent for electricians rests on 103 firms and the 77 percent for HVAC technicians on 52, while the 51 percent for laborers rests on 525. Eighty-one percent of roughly a hundred firms still means electrical work is hard to staff. It is not a claim that electricians are the largest number of unfilled jobs in American construction.
Are construction wages going up in 2026?
Yes, and faster than in the rest of the economy. Fifty-five percent of firms raised base pay for hourly craft workers by more than they did a year earlier, and 29 percent raised it by about the same percentage. Eight percent raised it by less. Eight percent did not raise it at all. That question drew 751 craft answers.
One limit matters here. Question 15 asks whether firms adjusted pay and/or benefits, but every answer option AGC published measures base pay rates only. There is no per diem question and no travel-pay question. The only dollar figures in it are the revenue bands firms report about themselves. Nobody was asked what anybody gets paid.
Average hourly earnings for production and nonsupervisory employees in construction reached $39.36 in August 2026, up $1.86 or 5.0 percent over the year, against 3.3 percent for the private sector. And 157,000 construction workers quit in July 2026, up from 100,000 in July 2025.
Data center work is part of why. About 28 percent of respondents did work on a data center project in the past 12 months, and of the 217 firms answering the workforce question, 58 percent say those projects increased competition for skilled workers and 49 percent report wage pressure.
How the survey was built, and what it cannot tell you
The survey is voluntary, not a census. Its 1,830 respondents chose to answer, they were not paid, and firms that fill out a workforce survey tend to be firms with workforce problems. Fifty-six percent of the firms that identified their labor structure always or primarily run open shop and 30 percent always or primarily run union, so the national craft numbers lean open shop.
The Bureau of Labor Statistics counted 326,000 construction job openings on the last business day of July 2026, and construction firms made 366,000 hires over the whole month. One is a single-day count and the other is a month of hiring, so the pair settles nothing. Associated Builders and Contractors runs a model instead. Anirban Basu, its chief economist, puts the 2026 need at 349,000 net new workers, down from the 439,000 ABC estimated in its January 2025 release, and that figure comes out of a model.
What firms say new hires are missing
Half of the 922 firms that answered the question say candidates are not qualified because they lack needed skills, a certificate or a license, down from 57 percent in the 2025 survey and still the reason cited most. Another 36 percent point to missing credentials, a driver's license or a work permit or a clean background check, and 42 percent say new hires fail to show up or quit shortly after starting.
Mindy Bates is human resources director at an electrical contractor in Valdosta, Georgia. On the September 3 call she says her traveling data center crews turn over hardest. "The travel team data center work does have the highest turnover particularly in the field and the electricians and helpers level," she says.
Her firm now brings new travelers to Valdosta for a week of orientation instead of sending them straight to the first project, and it gives written and hands-on skill assessments. When a worker's ability comes in under the level claimed during recruiting, the firm may offer a lower classification and wage instead of sending them home. "You cannot hire your way out of this situation. We've got to grow it from within as well," she says.
What to ask before you take the job
This part is my advice, and none of it comes from the survey. A firm that tests you on day one can reclassify you on day one, so ask what the skill assessment looks like and who grades it. Under OSHA 29 CFR 1926.21(b)(2) your employer has to instruct you in the recognition and avoidance of unsafe conditions and the regulations applicable to your work environment. Fifty-two percent of the 800 firms answering that question told AGC they run a structured onboarding process, and the survey never asked whether any of them meet that rule.
Get per diem and travel pay in dollars per day, in writing, before you accept. Ask whether it is taxed, whether it runs on the days you are not working, and who pays the drive out. Ask the schedule in plain terms, five eights or four tens or six tens, and what changes when the job gets tight. If you are going out on a book, the rate and the package are already set, so what you control is which contractor you sign with and what the subsistence is. Ask the hall.
Fourteen percent of firms increased overtime hours in the past year, so find out how the overtime gets handed out and what the overtime deduction does and does not cover before you count on it. Rate is one line on an offer. We covered the rest in how to compare a trade job offer beyond the hourly rate.
Where the skilled trades shortage in 2026 is headed
BLS projects employment of electricians to grow 9 percent from 2025 to 2035, from 821,000 to 896,900, with about 72,700 openings a year and a median wage of $63,190 in May 2025. Boyd Worsham is president and CEO of NCCER. "We still can't find enough, so we better figure out how to keep what we get," he says.
Rinvio places electricians and other trades on W-2 nationwide, and the open jobs are posted year round.
Sources: AGC of America and NCCER, 2026 Workforce Survey National Results, questions 1 through 31 (https://www.agc.org/sites/default/files/users/user21902/2026%20AGC%20WFS%20NCCER%20(3).pdf); AGC of America and NCCER, 2026 Workforce Survey Analysis, pages 1 through 12 (https://www.agc.org/sites/default/files/users/user21902/2026%20Workforce%20Survey%20Analysis%20(4).pdf); AGC of America news release, September 3, 2026 (https://www.agc.org/news/2026/09/03/construction-workforce-shortages-remain-acute-despite-soft-market-conditions-data-centers-strain); AGC of America, 2026 Workforce Survey Release Virtual Media Event Talking Points, September 3, 2026 (https://www.agc.org/sites/default/files/users/user21902/2026%20Workforce%20Survey%20Media%20Event%20Remarks%20(4).pdf); Sebastian Obando, Construction Dive, "Labor squeeze prompts revised construction workforce strategies," September 14, 2026 (https://www.constructiondive.com/news/labor-squeeze-revised-construction-workforce-strategies/830219/); Bryan Gottlieb, Engineering News-Record, "Even as Contractors Cut Headcount, 73% Still Plan to Hire," September 3, 2026 (https://www.enr.com/articles/63618-even-as-contractors-cut-headcount-73-still-plan-to-hire); U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, Job Openings and Labor Turnover Summary for July 2026, released September 1, 2026, Tables 1, 2 and 4 (https://www.bls.gov/news.release/jolts.t01.htm, https://www.bls.gov/news.release/jolts.t02.htm and https://www.bls.gov/news.release/jolts.t04.htm); U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, The Employment Situation for August 2026, released September 4, 2026 (https://www.bls.gov/news.release/empsit.nr0.htm), with construction average hourly earnings as compiled by AGC of America from BLS data, updated September 4, 2026 (https://www.agc.org/sites/default/files/users/user21902/Employment-AHE%20table%20AUG%202026.pdf); U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, Occupational Outlook Handbook, Electricians, last modified August 27, 2026 (https://www.bls.gov/ooh/construction-and-extraction/electricians.htm); Associated Builders and Contractors news release, January 15, 2026 (https://www.abc.org/News-Media/News-Releases/abc-construction-industry-must-attract-349000-workers-in-2026-despite-macroeconomic-headwinds), its January 2025 news release putting the 2025 figure at 439,000 (https://www.abc.org/News-Media/News-Releases/abc-construction-industry-must-attract-439000-workers-in-2025), and its published model methodology (https://www.abc.org/Portals/1/CEU/2026%20Workforce%20Shortage%20Model%20Methodology.pdf); and the Occupational Safety and Health Administration, 29 CFR 1926.21(b)(2), via the Electronic Code of Federal Regulations (https://www.ecfr.gov/current/title-29/subtitle-B/chapter-XVII/part-1926/subpart-C/section-1926.21). Featured photo: City of Greenville, North Carolina, via Flickr (Public Domain Mark 1.0)