So why does construction feel the labor shortage more acutely than other industries?

Because the real problem, isn’t a lack of workers, it’s a lack of access to the workers we already have.

Look at these other industries more closely and you realize they’re not feeling the pinch as much because they’ve all found ways to work around their labor constraints:

• Retail (6%) is offsetting its labor gaps with robotics, thanks to physically static work environments.

• Software (7%) avoids local shortages entirely by going remote and tapping global talent.

• Nursing (10%) is automating the admin tasks of nurses (about 30% of the job) to give them more time with patients.

But construction can’t pull any of those levers. Craft work happens across ever-changing environments, so robotics are a distant solution. It’s hyper-local, so it can’t be offshored. And it’s entirely manual, so there’s little admin work to automate.

Instead, it faces a unique constraint: the lack of construction-specific data on individual workers. Without this foundation, we can’t build intelligent hiring infrastructure capable of sourcing and connecting with craft workers and remain stuck using a patchwork of ill-fitting tools like job boards, referrals, staffing firms and ATS software etc. that all fail in the same three ways:

1. Workers aren’t correctly digitized - hiring tools fail to capture the skills, experience, or preferences of craft workers. Only 18% use job boards and when they do, they’re forced to cram their unique capabilities into generic fields that miss the nuance of their craft.

2. Search doesn’t work - because craft workers aren’t properly digitized, most systems lack the construction-specific filters needed to find them. Say you’re looking for an HVAC tech with commercial refrigeration rack experience in supermarkets—how do you find that on a job board? You post a generic HVAC job, shoehorn in the specifics, and hope the right person applies. But with endless permutations of skills, tools, and experience, and no standardized way to capture them, everyone with “HVAC” and “supermarket” on their resume floods your inbox. The result is recruiters wasting hours sifting through hundreds of irrelevant resumes. Needle, meet haystack.

3. The tools don’t fit - phone calls are the primary channel for craft hiring, but most hiring systems are built around email and desktop workflows. This leaves craft recruiters overwhelmed and 75% of interested, qualified workers never getting a call back. 

How we unlock access to hard-to-find craft talent

Construction doesn’t have time to wait for more workers to join the industry, it needs a solution today that can surface, target, and mobilize the talent we already have and do it with speed, precision, and at scale. Here’s our roadmap for solving the labor shortage by unlocking access to the available 95% of craft workers today:

1. Capture worker data through chat - as a former skilled tradesman, I know hands are always in use. Conversational AI is letting craft workers build searchable profiles on Skillit with their voice. They’re no longer typing or filling out forms, just conversing and building and maintaining data-rich profiles that best represent them.

2. Build a robust, craft-specific search experience that makes every craft worker discoverable - in conjunction with a robust taxonomy and keyword search tool, we are pioneering meaning-based search that understands the intent behind a search query so that recruiters can find qualified candidates without requiring exact keywords being captured on a worker’s profile.

3. Automate outreach and call scheduling to ensure every interview happens - today’s craft workers know their value and they’re no longer picking up random calls or waiting for follow-ups. Our AI scheduling tool is in its early days but it can already handle branded cold-call outreach, real-time follow-ups, and automated rescheduling, which ensures every single interested worker is reached and gets a response, even on nights, and weekends.

4. Build a massive database of vetted craft workers - everything we do is designed to feed and strengthen the core engine: a living, growing, verified database of the country’s best craft talent. As workers engage with Skillit through voice, search, scheduling, and interviews, we capture and refine critical data on skills, experience, preferences, and availability. That data compounds over time, creating a network effect: the more workers we digitize, the easier it becomes to find the right match instantly, in any trade, anywhere in the country, regardless of how hard they’ve been to find previously.

Scale your craft, today

Our labor shortage will take years to correct, but thankfully we don't need to wait for a new generation of craftworkers to come online. We just need to more efficiently reach the ones we already have and at Skillit, we’re turning this vision into reality as fast as we can.

In addition to building the largest database of digitized and vetted craft workers in the U.S., (150,000 craft workers and growing 10X every year), Skillit is helping customers like Swinerton, DPR, Brasfield & Gorrie, and WB Moore source, screen and connect with the exact workers they are looking for, even the really hard-to-find workers.

By prompting our AI scheduler Sam, to instantly surface best-fit candidates and handle the rote work of scheduling interviews, their teams are saving significant time and effort, freeing them up to focus on what matters most: building relationships with the right workers.

And in the coming years, I see AI becoming the primary evaluator of craft talent in our customer’s businesses, shifting recruiters from gatekeepers to high-leverage auditors, all while preserving the human touch where it matters most. I imagine it functioning as a fully predictive labor engine, capable of forecasting our customer’s labor demand, managing deployment, and preventing labor gaps before they happen.

To ensure we get there, our plan is:

1. Digitize the craft worker.

2. Build search tools to make them discoverable.

3. Build call-centric tools that connect them to opportunity.

4. And while doing all of that, build the largest ever database of vetted craft workers.

This is how construction solves its labor problem.

This is how America scales its craft.