The Infrastructure Bill Presents a Skilled Trades Opportunity — and a Challenge

By Sarah Hicks and Katherine Gustafson

With the passage of the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act (IIJA) in November 2021, the Biden Administration set out to spend trillions of dollars on infrastructure and create millions of jobs. Also known as the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, the IIJA authorized $1.2 trillion for transportation and infrastructure spending, with $550 billion going toward new investments and programs. 

In the years since, $711.8 billion of the allocated funds has been made available as grants to states, localities, Tribes and territories, according to the U.S. Government Accountability Office. The funding was appropriated to 15 government agencies to distribute as grants, with 74% given to the Department of Transportation.  

These hundreds of billions in funding are helping the U.S. update crumbling infrastructure and build new things the country badly needs. All this development demands many workers with a wide variety of skills, which is a dilemma in the face of an ongoing shortage of skilled workers in construction and associated trades. But it also presents an exciting opportunity to spark investment in short-term training and education that can help these industries meet the moment.

What the 2021 infrastructure bill means for workers

The IIJA included many aspects of the American Jobs Plan, a roughly $2 billion comprehensive package the Biden Administration introduced in March 2021. The plan’s strategy was to create a boom for the construction and transportation industries as they undertook work to strengthen bridges, roads and broadband coverage across the United States. 

Analysis from Georgetown University Center on Education and the Workforce (CEW) predicted at the time that the plan would create or save about 15 million jobs over 10 years. While that was welcome news for the economy, it held kernels of concern for the construction and transportation industries, which were to gain the bulk of the jobs created by the law but weren’t ready to tackle such a monumental challenge. 

“Some employers are already worrying that the skill demands of jobs created by a huge infrastructure plan would outstrip the skills of workers,” the Georgetown analysts wrote. “Even without an infrastructure plan in place, construction firms report that finding skilled labor is their largest concern.”

That concern only grew the following year as the Inflation Reduction Act and CHIPS and Science Act, both enacted in 2022, authorized more federal funding for infrastructure and related projects. Research from the National Skills Coalition and BlueGreen Alliance predicts that those three laws together will generate around 19 million jobs, 69% of which will be appropriate for workers without a bachelor’s degree (a higher share than the 59% of all U.S. jobs that don’t require a college diploma). In 2024, Associated Builders And Contractors (ABC) predicted that meeting the demand for labor in the construction industry will require attracting more than 500,000 additional workers above the normal pace of hiring.

The key to alleviating the problem lies in a strong training pipeline to replace them, which is a work in progress.

The challenge: To get qualified workers, you need good training 

Creating jobs is just the first step in the process. 

“Without a jobs training program, we won’t be able to prepare workers” to meet the newly created demand, said Anthony P. Carnevale, director of Georgetown’s CEW.

Unlike past infrastructure plans, this proposal includes provisions to support the hiring, training and retention of thousands of skilled workers. But to be deemed a success, the funding must connect workers with job-specific short-term training.  

Nicole Smith, a CEW research professor and chief economist who spoke to SkillPointe, notes that there are already partnerships and programs in place — earn and learn programs and not-for-profit programs — that are doing a good job of reaching the people who need these programs the most. Community colleges in many communities create learning opportunities close to home. 

There are ongoing questions about how to finance all aspects of this training, especially for the low-income people most likely to benefit from the plan. One solution was to make changes to Pell grant eligibility to cover short-term training, a move the CEW and others have advocated for years. Until recently, these federal grants offered free money for education and training, but with “seat-time” requirements dictating that programs comprise 600 or more hours over 15 or more weeks. 

This meant that Pell grants didn’t cover shorter programs like the ones that would get workers up to speed for infrastructure projects. But that changed in 2026, when the Working Families Tax Cuts Act created the Workforce Pell Grant program. Under this program, Pell Grants will cover enrollment in shorter-term training programs that prepare students for these types of skilled, in-demand jobs. 

“A lot of the people who might want to engage in these programs are lower-income people,” Smith says. “That’s why changes to Pell Grant eligibility is so important … to make sure that these grants are available to more people.”

The opportunity: A lot of things need fixing

The U.S. badly needs to update its infrastructure, which means there is abundant opportunity for the engineering and construction workforce, provided investment in the sector continues. 

The “2025 Report Card for America’s Infrastructure” from the American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE) gave U.S. infrastructure a ‘C’ rating, meaning most of it is “mediocre, requires attention.” This is an improvement from the ‘C-’ rating it received in the 2021 report card. Yet half of the 18 categories the report card measures — including aviation, dams, roads, schools and transit — still receive a ‘D’ or ‘D+’ rating, meaning that infrastructure is “poor, at risk.” Over 39% of roads are now in “poor or mediocre” condition, and more than 42,000 U.S. bridges are considered “poor.” 

The ASCE points out that improving all of the country’s infrastructure will require policymakers and others to address the engineering and construction workforce shortage. The Report Card recommends “implementing strategies and policies that recognize both short-term and long-term recruitment and retention challenges, as well as prioritize STEM opportunities in K-12 education.”

Infrastructure work is particularly good for job creation because there are many points of entry. Modern infrastructure jobs include a diverse set of roles, from urban planners to solar photovoltaic installers.

The work requires many types of skills to construct, maintain and manage everything from pipelines to rural broadband. Infrastructure jobs include carpenters, electricians, truck drivers, plumbers, pipefitters, heavy equipment operators, mechanics, cable and fiber optics installers, wind turbine technicians and more.

Many communities stand to benefit. The jobs can support a diverse workforce, including women and minorities. While the number of women in the construction industry increased 45% between 2015 and 2024, they still hold a small fraction of infrastructure jobs compared to men. The majority of new jobs created by new infrastructure funding are in male-dominated fields, but women are well-positioned to benefit from this change.  

“We know the jobs in infrastructure are predominantly held by men, but we also know a few things about these kinds of jobs: For one, these jobs are not only about brawn,” Smith says. There are many ways to contribute to the work being done, she says — some that require a hard hat and many that don’t. 

AI data center construction brings new skilled worker demand

The artificial intelligence boom is accelerating the growth in one corner of the infrastructure industry: data center construction. Building these mammoth facilities requires a small army of electricians, plumbers, pipefitters, HVAC technicians and other skilled workers, who can earn up to 30% more in these positions than they can in typical construction jobs. 

With more than 400 data centers under development as of late 2025 by tech companies including Amazon, Google and Microsoft, workers are in high demand. Despite the sharp demand and high wages, jobs remain unfilled, with 53% of data center operators saying they have difficulty finding qualified candidates. The lack of skilled labor is seen as one of the top three risks in building these larger-scale facilities. 

To address the problem, tech companies like Microsoft and Google have launched workforce training programs for data center technicians. Training courses and certifications for data center design and operations are proliferating, and the construction phase of these projects requires many of the same types of workers needed by bridge, road and dam reconstruction efforts. 

An opportunity to build on what we’ve already done

With the passage of IIJA, we see a “recognition of the importance of workforce training and the student supports that workers need to succeed,” says Katie Spiker, director of government affairs for National Skills Coalition, an organization that fights for inclusive, high-quality skills training. “That is really critical, and it is something we haven’t seen in previous workforce investment bills and packages.” 

Too often, she says, federal policy focuses on short-term economic returns when it comes to infrastructure, ignoring the long-term needs of these investments. These needs include building a talent pipeline, increasing hiring and retention of underrepresented groups, supporting fast-growing fields like alternative energy and revitalizing fields that are in decline like manufacturing. 

There is movement on all of these aspects of updating infrastructure, with a focus on getting many new workers the skills they need to establish a healthy talent pipeline for the long-term. 

“Skills training has to be part of the conversation,” Spiker says.

Sarah Hicks is a writer and editor with expertise in workforce training and sustainability. Katherine Gustafson is a freelance writer specializing in content for mission-driven changemakers such as tech disruptors in fintech, healthcare IT and B2B SaaS.