Skilled trades need 1.7 million hires a year and training covers 55 in 100; California loses 17,784 a year

The United States will need to fill about 1.7 million skilled-trades openings every year through 2035, and the training programs that can be measured are producing about 55 workers for every 100 needed, according to a report released Wednesday by the Alliance for America's Skilled Trades. The report, "The State of America's Skilled Trades", was produced by Jobs for the Future and the Burning Glass Institute and covers 124 trades occupations in all 50 states.

The alliance was founded in July by Ford, Google, BlackRock and Carhartt, and its announcement added 14 members, including Microsoft, Meta, Nvidia, Verizon, AT&T, Blackstone, Cintas, DeWalt and Milwaukee Tool. Fortune reported that more than 18 million people work in the trades, contributing an estimated $3.8 trillion to GDP in 2025.

The numbers behind the headline

• Most openings are replacements. Of the 1.7 million a year, about 600,000 are net-new jobs, Fortune reported, in areas such as AI, advanced manufacturing and energy. The rest come from retirements and people leaving the work.
• Growth is fastest in the service trades. The alliance projects employment of electricians growing at twice the rate for all occupations, HVAC technicians at three times and industrial machinery mechanics at five times.
• The workforce is old. Nearly a quarter of trades workers are 55 or older and 11% are under 25.
• Training leaks. Only about half of those who enroll in trades programs finish. The 55-per-100 figure does not count employer-led and on-the-job routes, the authors noted, so the real gap is somewhat smaller than it looks.

Where the shortage actually is

The report's point is that there is no single national shortage. Measured against 523 occupations, industrial machinery mechanics and millwrights rank in the 98th percentile for shortage pressure, electricians in the 85th and automotive technicians in the 54th. Geography matters as much: Texas and North Carolina each gain about 5,000 trades workers a year from other states, while New York loses a net 9,254 and California a net 17,784, according to state figures reported by Yellowhammer News. From 2019 to 2025, trades employment fell 5.2% in New York, 3.5% in Michigan and 1.5% in California.

Who it hits: the small contractor

The companies in the alliance can raise pay or fund their own academies. The businesses competing with them for the same electricians and HVAC technicians are mostly small. CheckThisBiz lists 40,729 independent HVAC companies, 27,975 plumbing businesses and 25,380 electrical contractors, with chains excluded.

The states losing workers hold a lot of them. California has 3,273 independent HVAC firms, 3,621 plumbing businesses and 2,269 electrical contractors on file: 9,163 in those three trades alone, in the state with the largest net outflow of trades workers. New York has 4,337. Texas, which is gaining workers, has 9,373, and the report still lists it among nine states where demand has outrun supply.

Apply the national age mix to a 10-person HVAC or electrical shop and the arithmetic is blunt: about two and a half of those people are 55 or older and about one is under 25. The retirements come whether or not the owner has trained a replacement, and with training programs producing 55 graduates for every 100 openings, hiring a finished technician from outside will stay expensive. The practical response is to start trainees earlier than feels necessary.

The alliance also launched a dashboard with more than 5,000 state and trade profiles at skilledtradesreport.com, which lets an owner check their own trade and state. Separately, Ford and JPMorgan on Tuesday announced a $2 billion Michigan program in which Ford aims to award up to $1 billion of supplier contracts over a decade and the bank aims to provide up to $1 billion of supplier financing, Fortune reported. We covered an earlier, smaller pledge in Google's plan to move 25,000 veterans into the trades.

Sources: The State of America's Skilled Trades (Jobs for the Future and Burning Glass Institute for the Alliance for America's Skilled Trades); Alliance press release; Fortune; Fortune; Yellowhammer News. Business counts from CheckThisBiz, chains excluded. Staffing arithmetic is ours.