North American construction unions say they gained 47,198 new members on top of a record 88,000 added apprentices last year, despite “widespread industry disruption” related to withheld federal funds and political uncertainty.
Sean McGarvey, president of the organization that represents 14 construction trades, attributed the growth in 2025 and the year before to workforce development through “collectively bargained investments” bolstered by “federal infrastructure and energy policies,” which claimed a total of more than 300,000 people enrolled in registered apprentice programs during this period.
“At a time of growing concern about the availability of skilled labor, [building trades] have the infrastructure and capacity to more than triple tuition at no cost to taxpayers,” McGarvey said in a statement on Feb. 22, calling for “robust public policy” from the Trump administration, similar to what he did during President Joe Biden’s tenure.
“While the current administration has announced future foreign investment in the United States, none has yet produced a single hour of work for our members,” McGarvey added. “Instead, cancellations, delays, withdrawn permits, withheld funds and political uncertainty have put these planned domestic investments in jeopardy.”
The amount of work commercial and industrial contractors will complete in the coming months fell to a four-year low, according to the Builders and Associates Construction Backlog Indicator in January.—decreasing 0.2 months from December, with a reading of 8 months. The survey said the backlog has narrowed by 0.4 months since January 2025, with heavy commercial and institutional and industrial portfolios show annual and monthly declines.
However, the infrastructure backlog was the strongest in 10 months, up two months from a year earlier and 0.9 months since December, Associated Builders and Contractors reported.
Related to the declines, its chief economist eeconomist Anirban Basu said on February 10 that construction contractors are “surprisingly optimistic” about the near term. “Only 13% of contractors expect their sales to decline over the next six months, the smallest share since February 2022,” he added.
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Meanwhile, the Associated General Contractors of America reported that overall contractor sentiment “has declined markedly compared to last year.”
However, with skilled labor needs growing in key sectors such as advanced energy, McGarvey warned that continued federal investment in local labor resources is needed to meet increasingly intense project demands.
“Uncertainty and instability for the construction industry is incompatible with building the highway construction workforce that America urgently needs right now,” he said. “We urge all policymakers to stay focused on what works: real investments for real projects tied to our training infrastructure to strengthen America now and into the future.”
