Workforce development is a complex and multifaceted system, into which flow thousands of inputs. Some are industry and role specific, for instance: a certain skill set, years of experience, career advancement prospects.
But like all systems, it is also heavily influenced by inputs outside its boundaries. Demographics, educational systems, migration patterns, public policy, housing affordability, and cultural attitudes all have an immense impact on workforce development.
While workforce organizations can influence the former, they have far less control over the latter. That distinction matters because a training program designed to enable more people to enter the construction field may be highly effective, but results can still be constrained by socio-economic factors that it has no capability to solve.
For instance: do potential students have a baseline comprehension of the math and reading that the program requires? Do these students have reliable transportation to the jobsite? Do they have internet access to be aware that such a class exists? These socio-economic inputs are far beyond the ability any one group to change, but they can still hold workforce development systems hostage.
To a large extent, they are doing so now to western Pennsylvania construction. Labor shortages are consistently mentioned by contractors across the region as one the biggest issues facing the industry, and most are aware that the foundational factor behind that is the region’s demographics.
Demographics is not just another input into a workforce development system. It is the primary one, and for obvious reasons. It represents the size, age, and growth of a population, which define the pool from which every future worker must ultimately be drawn.
And in Western Pennsylvania, that input is weak. The latest data from the U.S. Census Bureau shows that the Pittsburgh MSA had a total population of 2.42 million. This makes it the 28th largest in the United States but the region’s issues with population decline are well-known.
Between 1980 and 2010, the population of our region declined by nearly 300,000. It mostly stabilized in the 2010’s, but growth since then has been extremely marginal, and a 2026 Census Bureau release estimates that the region declined by 3,160 people (0.13 percent) between July 1, 2024, and July 1, 2025.
To put this into scope: Pittsburgh was one of only four metros among the nation’s largest 40 to record an outright population loss. And since 2020, the Pittsburgh MSA has experienced a cumulative population decline. A major reason for this is what the census calls “natural change” and is simply a comparison of births and deaths.
This region has recorded more deaths than births every year since the mid 1990’s. Of the nation's forty largest metropolitan areas, Pittsburgh experiences the most severe rate of natural population decline, losing approximately 3.2 residents per 1,000 people annually through natural change alone.
The reason for this all this is pretty straightforward: steel. The collapse of that industry sent the region into a mini depression, causing substantial outmigration. And the people who stayed through the hard times are aging and had less kids.
The median age of the Pittsburgh MSA is 43, which is 10 percent higher than the national figure of 39.2. More than 40 percent of the region is over the age of fifty and between 1980 and 2020, every age cohort under 40 declined, while nearly every age cohort over 60 grew substantially. There are 30,000 more residents between 60-64 now than in 1980, and 143,000 more residents aged 65 and up.
This is a real problem for the construction industry. Various surveys and industry groups report that nationally, more than one in five construction workers is already 55 are older. Some workforce studies estimate that roughly 41 percent of American construction workforce could retire by 2031.
And, demographically speaking, their replacements just aren’t there. This is true nationally and acute locally. Western Pennsylvania has roughly 100,000 fewer teenagers today than it did in 1980, about 90,000 less children under 10, and about 150,000 less residents in their 20’s.
A shrinking workforce pool creates immense waves throughout a workforce development system. Since every industry is looking to develop replacements, the competition between groups gets fiercer. It can stymie a company’s growth and creates pressure on retention. When replacement workers are less abundant, losing a trained and competent one carries a larger cost, not just fiscally but with institutional knowledge.
These difficulties are amplified for the construction industry, which has some pre-existing filters already limiting the inflow of new workers. It’s work often involves being outdoors in unpleasant weather and can be grimy and physically demanding. It also comes with uneven pay and can require a lot of travel.
Those challenges have and always will weed out a significant number of people who have a no interest in pouring concrete under the August sun or installing rebar in the January wind. But as times change the workplace itself is also acting like a filter.
Construction is a very masculine environment. The complexity, precision, and logistics behind a build demand attention to detail and precision across multiple teams. Mistakes mean lost money and this leaves little time or room for concerns about feelings. Many can’t handle that, either.
The gut punch here is that hardly anything can be done about this. Some people will always dislike working outdoors, construction sites will likely remain gruff, and stopping demographic decline is not feasible for any workforce development system.
It’s not even something the government can get its hands around. Even if it could, the turnaround time can be measured in generations. In order to return to 1980 levels, western Pennsylvania would have to add 15,000 residents every year for 20 years.
But sunlight is always the best disinfectant and in order to improve the construction workforce system, a clear-eyed view of reality is needed. The construction industry cannot realistically expect a large demographic tailwind.
Its growth must therefore come from marginal improvements across a wide range of inputs into its workforce development systems. Exploring those inputs is the purpose of this series. In the next edition, we will take a look at one that is often overlooked but causes real issues: transportation.
