Survey: Labour shortages spur shift towards tech

Key Takeaways:

• Labor shortages are now impacting all surveyed construction leaders, driving up project costs and increasing workplace burnout dramatically.
• Construction firms are aggressively adopting AI and integration technology to optimize workforce planning and address staffing constraints.
• Project bidding decisions and team assembly now prioritize worker capacity and past team synergy over specific build-type experience.

The Whole Story:

With no end in sight to labour challenges, the world’s biggest construction leaders are doubling down on technology. 

The data comes from AI workforce planning platform Bridgit’s second annual State of Workforce Planning report. They surveyed 250 construction leaders at firms with $100M or more in annual revenue across the US, Canada, the UK, and Australia. 

Respondents were 63% directors and 37% VPs or above, spanning operations, project management, and field operations. Year-over-year comparisons refer to Bridgit’s 2025 State of Workforce Planning report.

All 250 leaders said the labor shortage is affecting their business, up from 93% in 2025. Cost is a top concern, with 68% of contractors reporting higher costs as a result of the shortage, up from 43% last year.

The survey showed that more than a third of leaders are now open to implementing AI that can act on its own. Technology is also behind one of this year’s other big changes: how leaders see the importance of integration. A year ago, being able to connect a planning tool to an HRIS was a priority for just under one-third of leaders. This year it is for 99%, and nearly half of leaders (43%) already name AI tools and MCP connections as essential to integrating with workforce planning.

With a shortage of available workers, leaders are having to rethink how they make decisions on project pursuits and team composition. When choosing which projects to bid on, 98% of leaders now put increased weight on workforce availability and capacity, up from 60% last year. 

It has also changed what leaders look for in a project team. With little time for ramp-up, the importance of identifying team members with previous experience working together nearly doubled, rising from 44% to 84%, and is now the top factor in building a successful team. 

Factoring in experience with the specific build type fell from 59% to 27%, a drop that Bridgit’s team says could be due to the explosion of data center builds, which represent a brand new complex build type for many contractors.

“Data centres are stretching contractors in a way they haven’t had to be stretched before,” explained Bridgit CEO Mallorie Brodie. “With the volume of people required, you need labour not just from one region or division, but people from across their entire business. So you are seeing workforce planning happening at a larger, more enterprise scale.” 

She noted that these pressures are pushing firms to leverage technology and AI. The data shows 80% of construction leaders have incorporated AI into their workforce planning, with 30% actively using it and 50% in the early stages of implementation. Fewer than one in five have yet to begin.

The biggest concerns they have are trusting AI recommendations and dealing with tools that don’t support construction-specific workflows.

The pressures to increase productivity with fewer resources can have a cost. Brodie explained that when asked about the impact of labour shortages on operations, burnout rose 36 percentage points from last year’s survey.

“Mental health is a big topic and always a concern for contractors,” said Brodie. “We talk about these huge backlogs and how busy things are, but we also need to be thinking about people and how to maintain balance. That should be top of mind for the industry.”

Brodie urged companies to start small when investing in technology and change, noting that not all things work for all organizations. She suggests zeroing in on one thing that can be done to make your business more efficient, prevent burnout and have more sustainable operations.

“It’s overwhelming with everything happening in the tech world, so many tools and processes. Pick one thing to start with. Once you see a win there, move on,” said Brodie.