Thanks to everyone who responded to our "Skilled Labor Shortage Solutions" poll through the month of October, and we're proud to share the results.

The top suggested remedy? Create workforce recruitment and training programs exclusively for residential construction, which garnered 26% of the responses. 

Thankfully, those programs exist, led by Home Builders Institute (HBI). Largely funded by the federal Job Corps program, HBI offers tuition-free, hands-on skilled trades training programs (including as the BuildStrong Academies) exclusively for the residential building sector. Its 9-week training programs for young adults, ex-military, and other communities operate across 48 states in partnership with thousands of organizations.

Solution #2, at 20%, is to transition to construction methods that require less labor, such as pre-cut, panelization, modular, and manufactured (HUD-code) alternatives. 

According to recent research by Home Innovation Research Labs, 47% of home builders anticipate using pre-cut systems within the next 5 years, while 38% plan to incorporate factory-built wall panels, 34% floor cassettes, 25% modular, and 16% manufactured home systems in that time frame.

Among the "Other" responses to our poll (6% of all responses), suggestions included national immigration reform to allow and/or protect legal foreign labor sources, greater outreach to middle- and high school students and programs, opening federal lands or making land swaps to build starter homes, and encouraging more professionalism and unionization of construction skills and labor resources.

"The biggest untapped lever is making sure builder decisions support trade utilization instead of undermining it," says Matt Winter, product development manager for TradeTrax, which offers a platform to help builders and construction trades build homes faster.  

According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS), roughly 11.1% of overall construction industry workers in the U.S. currently belong to a union.