For the better part of a generation, and certainly since the Great Recession, the housing industry has suffered a shortage of skilled labor due to “college for all” propaganda and policies, as well as an aging workforce and the allure of high-paying jobs in the tech sector.

More recently, the spike in data center construction, from roughly $15 billion in 2022 to nearly $50 billion today, especially in major housing markets, has further eroded the labor pool for the residential sector thanks to high demand, short-term training, and sky-high salaries.

Ed Brady, a former home builder and currently the president and CEO of Home Builders Institute (HBI), the nation’s leading nonprofit provider of skilled trades training through hands-on, instructor-led programs across the country, weighs in on the long- and short-term challenges and opportunities for builders and the next generation of workers in that new dynamic.

PB: Are they providing any kind of training?

EB: The big tech companies and data center investors are funding skilled labor training to increase their labor pool for data centers, but they're not working with us, unfortunately.

Meta, for example, hired Global Commercial Real Estate Services (CBRE) to recruit and place 1,000 electricians. They’ve already graduated their first five-week cohort, and they are putting them into apprenticeships with the contractors that are building data centers. So, if you get into that program, you're guaranteed a job.

[Ed. Note] Meta partnered with CBRE to recruit and train thousands of fiber-optic and infrastructure technicians through its LevelUp program. The company’s broader $115 million America's Workforce Academy initiative, launched in June 2026, absorbed LevelUp and partnered with the Associated Builders and Contractors (ABC) to lead a Construction-Ready Training program to educate structural trades, such as electricians and HVAC specialists, needed to build physical data centers.

PB: What strategies you are proposing or advocating for home builders to compete with this labor demand from data centers and keep their trade partners?

EB: Jobs to build data centers are sometimes paying in the six figures, just starting out, which is inflationary for the residential market to keep people. So, we’ve got to put more people into the funnel and offer more training opportunities to provide the skilled labor housing needs.

Our philosophy and our tactics are to get into schools at the secondary level. We're currently in almost 425 high schools. We need to start there to fill the pipeline.

The Home Depot just came out with their program with Scouting America and Boys and Girls Clubs, and we're talking to both organizations about how do we take somebody who earned a badge in carpentry and shows a propensity to want a career path in that field. How do we take them to the next level once they have an introduction to the industry.

PB: What would you tell a builder who isn't in a market where there's just not enough work to keep their trades busy? 

EB: Number one, I think builders have to diversify. If you're a [small-volume] home builder and you're not into the remodeling business, you're missing an opportunity. You can't just be a builder anymore, the cyclicality of it is too risky. And we’ve got to educate our builders on how to do that, because it’s a different business model.

Number two, builders cannot depend solely on the subcontractor base, so I encourage them to employ some of their skilled labor so they can control it.

Related:

• Exclusive Research: You Told Us: How Housing Should Address its Skilled Labor Shortage
• Podcast: "Who’s Going to Build Our Future?" (Ed Brady with Michael Krisa)
• Video: Inside Construction's Skilled Labor Shortage (Ed Brady and NAHB Chief Economist Robert Dietz)

PB: Do you think that that the efforts to recruit and train labor specifically for data centers will “lift all boats” and that at some point that more labor is going to be available for housing?

EB: Absolutely. I think the more people that are investing in the labor force will create longevity into a sustainable workforce. And it will lift all boats in wages, too, but only if you're more productive. And that's where training comes into it.
I'm concerned that these large corporations are just hiring people off the street, putting them in a five-week training program before they're on the job, and paying them six figures because they need bodies. At HBI, we train in nine- and 12-week programs so they’re more productive out of the gate.

PB: What other tactics or messaging can you deploy to fill the labor funnel?

EB: One is that 60% of the jobs created in the next 10 years are not going to require a college degree, according to BLS (the Bureau of Labor Statistics), and that 45 of 47 construction-related occupations are classified as having "low" or "moderate" exposure to being replaced by artificial intelligence (AI).

As a result, we’re hearing more and more that young people are looking to earn a credential, whether it be skilled trades or how to work at a data center operation, that’s not going to require a college degree or be impacted or replaced by AI.

PB: What about pursuing policymaking that would specifically help residential labor issues?

EB: I think it's a long path, but I think it's very well worth the effort.

Today, the federal government spends almost $40 to $50 billion a year on higher education, and 1.5 billion on Career and Technical Education (CTE).

We have to flip that by getting lawmakers to see that the majority of young people are not going to need or pursue a college degree and that we don't have enough opportunity in CTE for them. I’d like to see them take $10 billion of the money going to higher education and put it into CTE.

At the state level, the North Carolina Home Builders Association went to its legislature to get HBI's curriculum licensed and approved, and those lawmakers agreed. They also got $300,000 appropriated to fund schools with our curriculum, specifically to the residential industry.

At the local level, we're going to have to battle to make sure schools are funding shop class again and that there are opportunities for young people to get into this industry.

PB: Do you see a time when the data center folks start investing more in skilled construction labor in general, not just for their own interests and needs?

EB: I think in the very near future, we're going to have funding come our way from some of these high-tech companies. I mean, Nvidia recently joined the Lowe's Alliance, and who would have thought Nvidia would join a skilled trades workforce alliance?

Google recently invested in HBI, and we are hopeful we can continue to build on that partnership to support our long-term goals and expand access to skilled trades careers.

I believe there will be more to follow because they understand it isn't just about data centers, it’s about the whole economy, about building homes for their employees. I think they're starting to think long-term, and I welcome that kind of resource and that kind of funding.