The skilled labor shortage continues to put real pressure on commercial contractors. In a recent BuildOps survey of more than 600 commercial contractors across North America, 76% said skilled labor is still in short supply. Industry forecasts suggest the gap is only widening — with an estimated 2.4 million trades jobs expected to go unfilled by 2028. As project complexity rises and expectations climb, the strain is showing up across schedules, margins, and capacity.

BuildOps, the all-in-one platform powering the nation’s largest commercial contractors, is working with Harvard Business School Professor Chris Stanton on new research aimed at understanding how that gap takes shape long before anyone starts hiring.

The study focuses on how high school students form views about education, earnings, job stability, and career prestige — and how those early beliefs influence the paths they see as realistic, respectable, or worth pursuing at a critical moment in their lives.

Based on survey data from students approaching post–high school decisions, the research examines how early signals, expectations, and social pressure shape which careers feel available — and viable — including:

• How students weigh college pathways against careers in the skilled trades
• Where career expectations take hold, from parents and teachers to guidance counselors, social media, and digital tools
• Gaps between what students believe about earnings, debt, and long-term outcomes versus what the data shows
• The role of prestige, identity, and social pressure in shaping career choice
• How students think about job security and the impact of artificial intelligence across different fields

“America didn’t wake up one day with a labor shortage,” said Chris Stanton, Ph.D., Marvin Bower Associate Professor of Business Administration at Harvard Business School (HBS). “These outcomes are shaped years earlier — by what young people are told, what they believe success looks like, and what information they have access to when they make decisions.”

The research aims to pinpoint where those beliefs diverge from reality — particularly around earnings, debt, completion rates, and long-term opportunity — and how those gaps may be steering students away from stable, high-impact careers in the skilled trades.

BuildOps CEO Alok Chanani said the work reflects a growing need to address the labor gap well before it shows up on a jobsite or in a hiring funnel.

“Commercial construction and service are essential to how this country runs,” said Chanani. “If we want to fix the labor gap, we have to understand how we got here — and that starts with how young people are taught to think about work, value, and opportunity long before they ever enter the workforce.”

Findings from the research will contribute to ongoing efforts around workforce development and education pathways, helping bring more clarity to what the future of skilled labor looks like as technology continues to reshape how work gets done. The study is currently underway, with initial insights expected to be shared later this year.