The NAHB/Well Fargo Housing Market Index (HMI) survey has recently revealed that labor shortages in the home building industry are becoming increasingly prevalent.
Builders were inquired about labor shortages in 16 distinct trades during the September 2026 HMI survey.
The percentage of builders who reported a shortage of labor they directly employ ranged from a low of 33% for excavators and building maintenance managers to a high of 58% for workers who perform finished carpentry.
The shortage was either serious or some.
The shortage percentages were generally higher than they were during the previous survey conducted by NAHB in April 2025.
The shortage percentages for plumbers and HVAC personnel remained at 45% and 43%, respectively, while each of the other 14 listed trades experienced a slight increase.
Framing crews (up 9 percentage points to 57%), landscaping workers (up 7 percentage points to 39%), and roofers (up 6 percentage points to 36%) are the three trades experiencing the most significant shortages.
In September 2026, the shortage percentage was 47%, which is an increase from 42% in April 2025, when the average was calculated across the 9 trades that NAHB has consistently covered since 1996.
The current 9-trade shortage percentage is 47%, which is higher than it was at any point during the boom period of 2004-2006, when the total number of housing starts averaged over 1.8 million annually.
Conversely, the seasonally adjusted annual rate of starts in August 2026 was less than 1.3 million.
The reported shortages of residential construction labor experienced a consistent decline between 2022 and 2025 after reaching a climax during the COVID-19 pandemic.
However, they have since spiked in the most recent survey.
The recent increase in the percentage of home builders reporting labor shortages is not unexpected, as employment in residential construction has been declining.
Home building is in competition with other segments of the construction industry, particularly data centers, for labor.
The scarcity is further exacerbated by the heightened fears of workers that are a result of immigration enforcement.
Home builders also reported increasing labor costs in the September HMI survey, in addition to the shortages.
The cost of labor for the same home increased by a median of 4.2% in the previous 12 months.
Typically, subcontractors are responsible for performing a significant portion of the physical labor necessary to construct a home, rather than the primary laborers employed by the builders.
According to a 2020 NAHB study, builders typically employ two dozen distinct subcontractors and subcontract out 84% of their total construction expenses when constructing a single-family home.
Home builders are asked a distinct set of questions regarding subcontractor shortages in the NAHB’s HMI survey.
Shortages of subcontractors were consistently more prevalent than shortages of labor directly employed by builders from 2012 to 2020, as the home building industry began the long process of recovery from the Great Recession.
Nevertheless, this disparity has been eliminated, and the graph for subcontractor shortages now closely resembles the equivalent graph for directly employed labor.
In reality, over 50% of builders have reported a shortage of subcontractors and direct laborers in the same five trades: framers, rough and finished carpenters, bricklayers, and concrete workers.
Please refer to the September 2026 HMI Special Questions report for additional information, which includes the complete history of each query in the HMI labor availability survey dating back to 1996.
[Read more about this topic on eyeonhousing.org]