🔒The housing crisis’ labor problem: Facing an aging workforce, construction firms are now recruiting traditional high school students

At one end of a Marlborough convention center, a high school student carefully grips a nail gun, guided by an industry professional. Across the room, another student pulls a fire alarm as part of a demonstration. For Central Massachusetts’ construction industry, the question isn’t whether students can handle the tools. It’s whether enough of them will choose to.

“A lot of reputable contractors in the area have retired, and there aren’t enough younger guys stepping in to replace them,” said Ben Lapin, operating manager of Salisbury Construction in Worcester. “So you’ve got a shrinking workforce and not much behind it.” Held April 2, the fourth annual Trade and Construction Expo drew hundreds of high school students from across the MetroWest region, offering hands-on exposure to careers in the trades. Organized by the Metro South/West Workforce Board and the 495/MetroWest Partnership, the event is part of a growing effort to steer students, especially those outside vocational schools, toward construction careers. The fire alarm display was set up by Billerica-based Interstate Electrical Services, while the nail gun demonstration was from Wisconsin-based Milwaukee Tool. Behind the demonstrations and virtual simulators is a more urgent concern: a shrinking workforce threatening the state’s ability to build housing at the scale it needs. “One of the companies here today said the average age of their electricians is 53 years old,” said Jason Palitsch, executive director of the 495/MetroWest Partnership. “There wasn't really an effective pipeline to really put trade and construction careers on the minds of young adults. In voc-tech schools, they would get exposed to some of this, but in a traditional high school, it usually isn't discussed that much.”

“It’s going to be a real challenge.”

That pipeline problem is colliding with a housing crisis already dominating state and local agendas. Massachusetts needs to build 222,000 housing units by 2035 to meet demand. Worcester alone will need more than 12,000 new units by 2033, according to the City’s housing production plan.

About 30% of Massachusetts residential construction workers are over the age of 55, a higher share than both the statewide workforce and the national construction industry, according to an October report from the Executive Office of Housing and Livable Communities. The state has roughly 18,000 residential construction workers, down from about 20,000 before the 2008 foreclosure crisis. To fill the gap left by an aging workforce, the industry has become increasingly reliant on immigrant labor, which has become less reliable in the last two years. About one-third of construction workers say they’ve been impacted by federal immigration enforcement efforts, as 92% of firms say they are struggling to find workers, according to an August study by the Associated General Contractors of America. These workforce shortages impact housing production. The annual U.S. economic impact of longer construction times associated with labor shortages is $10.8 billion per year, leading to a reduction of about 19,000 single-family homes that would have been built in 2024, according to a June study from the Washington, D.C.-based Home Builders Institute. For contractors, those numbers translate into daily uncertainty, Lapin said. Salisbury Construction is already navigating rising material costs and stricter building codes. The labor shortage is having a chilling effect on the industry’s ability to start and complete projects, he said. A 2015 graduate of Worcester Technical High School, Lapin works at the firm founded by his father, Jon Lapin, in the early 1980s, a time when he said many of his father’s friends were starting their own firms. The 28-year-old says few of his fellow classmates ended up working full-time in construction. “When those guys retire, it’s going to be a real challenge for me as a 28-year-old planning to run this business long-term,” Lapin said. “The pipeline just isn’t there right now.”

Casting a wider net

Even with technological developments, construction work still involves physical labor, but opportunities in the industry often defy stereotypes, said Greg Bunn, executive director of Metro South/West Workforce Board. Exhibits at the Marlborough event tended to focus on technology, including a simulator allowing participants to take control of a virtual excavator and a VR headset allowing for the exploration of a virtual jobsite. The goal of the event is to cast a wider net through engagement with traditional high schools. Vocational high schools have been the clearest pathway into the trades, but demand for those programs now exceeds available seats, leaving students without access to hands-on training. Attendance at the Marlborough expo has grown from about 11 schools at the inaugural 2022 event to 24 schools this year.

“What we're trying to do is help develop that workforce to build new homes and new accessory dwelling units,” Bunn said. “A lot of workers are leaving Massachusetts because they can't afford to work here. A lot of folks are working or aging out of that workforce.” The rise in schools’ attendance has increased in the number of young women attending the event, a traditionally underrepresented group in the construction industry that could help fill its ranks, Bunn said. Women remain underrepresented in the trades, even as they make up 51% of overall employment in Massachusetts. They account for 21% of workers in residential construction and 15% in specialty trade contracting, according to a 2025 report from the Gov. Maura Healey Administration. “When we first started doing this event, maybe 2%-3% of participants were women,” Bunn said. “Now we’re up to about 15%. The schools have been a big partner in helping us recruit more effectively.” Eric Casey is the managing editor at Worcester Business Journal, who primarily covers the real estate and banking & finance industries.