Issue 003: The Next Generation Is Already Here

Something is happening in the skilled trades that doesn't get nearly enough attention — and it's one of the more encouraging data points in an industry that's spent a few years focused on what's going wrong.

Young workers are entering construction faster than they're entering almost any other field. ADP Research found that since 2020, the median age of electricians, plumbers, carpenters, and HVAC professionals dropped by as much as five years. Across the broader workforce, that shift was just one year.

The timing matters. National Apprenticeship Week runs April 26-May 2 this year — moved to spring for the first time, a signal of how seriously the industry is taking the pipeline. Forty-two percent of construction firms have increased their apprenticeship investment over the past year.

None of this erases the gap. The industry still needs 349,000 net new workers in 2026. But the composition of who is entering the trades is changing — younger, with longer careers ahead of them, in a field that's actively competing for their attention in ways it wasn't a decade ago.

For anyone early in a construction career: the cohort around you is more intentional about being here than people tend to assume. The profession is building something worth building.

ARMY CORPS AWARDS $2B MILITARY ENERGY RESILIENCE CONTRACT A 10-year, $2-billion multiple-award contract was disclosed April 17 — 14 firms selected to compete for task orders at military installations nationwide through 2036. Hensel Phelps, Tutor Perini, Parsons, CDM Constructors, and Honeywell are among the awardees. Work covers microgrid upgrades, renewable integration, and critical power systems as the Pentagon moves to harden installations against grid instability and cyber risk. Take: Defense construction is a decade-long pipeline. The firms that made this list are staffing now.

NATIONAL APPRENTICESHIP WEEK MOVES TO SPRING — AND THE NUMBERS ARE STARTING TO SHIFT For the first time, National Apprenticeship Week runs April 26-May 2, under the theme "Making America Skilled Again." The calendar shift reflects growing urgency. Forty-two percent of construction firms are increasing apprenticeship investment this year. ADP Research found the median age of electricians, plumbers, carpenters, and HVAC professionals dropped by up to five years since 2020 — compared to just one year across other industries. Take: The investment is working, slowly. The question is whether it scales fast enough to offset the retirement wave arriving in parallel.

FLUOR LANDS TWO ENERGY FRONT-END CONTRACTS IN TEXAS Fluor secured early-phase engineering contracts for two very different energy projects in Texas: a new refinery in Brownsville developed by America First Refining, and a proposed small modular reactor in South Texas developed by X-energy. Both are front-end engineering and design work — the phase that precedes major construction buildout. Take: What gets designed in 2026 gets built in 2027 and 2028. Texas energy construction — both conventional and nuclear — is a hiring story on a delay.

Forty-one percent of the current construction workforce will retire by 2031. For every five workers leaving, only two are entering to replace them.

Most of the conversation about this focuses on the hiring problem. Here's what gets missed: the knowledge problem.

The superintendents who have managed a hundred projects, the estimators who can read a set of drawings and tell you exactly where the risk is, the project managers who have closed out jobs in every condition imaginable — they are still here. For another three to five years, most of them are.

After that, the window closes fast.

For emerging construction professionals, this is the most underused advantage in the industry right now. Not a credential, not a new title. Deliberate access to people who have seen things you haven't.

The ask doesn't need to be formal. "Can you mentor me?" puts people on the spot. Specific questions get real answers: "I'm working through X — how did you approach situations like this?" Real answers build relationships. Those relationships become the informal network that shapes where opportunities come from for the next 20 years.

The institutional knowledge walking out of this industry over the next decade took 30 years to build. Some of it is still available — if you go get it now.

The Midwest is building a strong case for attention. Minnesota is projecting 9,100 new construction jobs and 48,000 total openings through the next cycle — retirements are creating positions faster than the market can backfill them. Chicago ranks consistently as one of the most stable construction markets in the country, with steady infrastructure modernization work and less recruiting competition than the Sun Belt metros.

On the federal side: the Army Corps $2B military energy resilience contract creates a decade-long hiring pipeline at installations nationwide. The 14 winning firms will be competing for the same set of specialized trades — electricians, HVAC mechanics, civil engineers, and energy systems specialists — regardless of which task orders they land.

Roles most in demand outside the Sun Belt right now: Civil Engineers, Electricians, HVAC Mechanics, Equipment Operators, and Safety Managers. The Midwest and federal construction pipeline are running hotter than they appear from a distance.

Every generation of construction professionals has thought the next one wasn't coming. They keep being wrong. Worth sitting with: what you're doing to welcome the ones who are already here.

— The Foundation Briefing Team