Editor’s Note: In last month’s issue, part 1 of this story focused on the Tennessee Titans' new 1.8 million-square-foot, 60,000-seat stadium being built in Nashville.
The United States is experiencing a historic building boom as megaprojects reshape the nation.
Data centers, advanced manufacturing plants, federally funded public works, and major civic projects are intensifying an already squeezed labor market. Add to that a naturally retiring workforce, credential barriers, and immigration pressures and there is an even greater problem for the construction industry.
According to Associated Builders and Contractors, the U.S. construction industry will need approximately 349,000 net new workers in 2026 and 456,000 additional workers in 2027 on top of normal hiring just to keep supply and demand in balance.
However, the pace of younger workers entering the trades is not keeping up. This impacts the labor supply and reduces the mentorship opportunities available for new workers to learn directly from industry veterans. Misconceptions about lower wages and physically demanding work often deter potential talent, even though many trade jobs offer competitive salaries and job security.
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The Associated General Contractors of America, in its 2025 Workforce Survey, found that 92 percent of construction firms are having a hard time finding qualified workers. As a result, 88 percent of firms report having openings for craft construction workers, while 80 percent of firms have openings for salaried workers.
The skilled labor shortage threatens to delay projects, increase costs, and hinder growth.
For those job hunters who are interested, oftentimes they are unaware of not only the credentials needed for a career in construction, but the variety of career choices and opportunities that exist in the industry.
“There is a lack of education around what the potential opportunities are, and not knowing how to get started,” said Jessica Begin, Workforce Development Manager, Turner Construction.
In order to work on the Tennessee Titans’ new Nissan Stadium project, for example, a worker needs to either be OSHA 10 certified or OSHA 30 certified. Without those certifications, job applicants may be screened out by trade businesses before they ever reach the job site.
“With construction, there is a preconceived notion of what the industry is,” said Herbert Brown, Senior Director of Community and Citizenship, Turner Construction. “The knowledge and the information sometimes can be a barrier.”
“I find in some of the conversations I have with individuals that they don’t know what options are out there for them in construction,” Begin added. “A lot of individuals have a preconceived notion of, ‘I’m just going to be swinging a hammer, or getting really hot and sweaty and working out in the sun.’ There are so many other opportunities for them, whether it’s in a safety role or a quality role, or even in our Virtual Design and Construction (VDC).”
“We know that a lot of people are going to retire and our industry is getting older, so how do we help that next generation, getting them all the information, the resources, the tools, and everything that they need so they can be successful?” Brown said.
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The team at Turner, collaborating with the Tennessee Titans’ ONE Community program and its project partners, came up with their own answer to that question by creating the Titans Construction Training Camp (TC2), borrowing the Titans football language while building the team’s future home.
Calling themselves the Tennessee Builders Alliance (TBA), all four of the general contractors that are on the Nashville job site, including Turner Construction Company, AECOM Hunt, Polk & Associates Construction, and I.C.F. Builders & Consultants, created a joint venture to oversee construction of the new Nissan Stadium project while prioritizing local workforce development.
“This project is going to have an overall positive impact on a lot of local contractors,” said Mike Gallagher, Project Executive, Turner Construction. “One of the challenges — and it’s something that the construction industry has overall — is a skilled craft workforce.”
“There’s a lot of construction here in this market, so ensuring overall the quantity of craft and skilled workforce to successfully deliver a project of this size is obviously a challenge, but we’ve had great trade partners that have partnered with the local workforce and have also brought in resources and their expertise from all over the country to partner with us and successfully work together to deliver this project,” Gallagher added.
The TC2 program launched in 2024, initially starting as a three-week paid training program. It included Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) 10 safety certification and the National Center for Construction Education and Research (NCCER) Core basic-skills curriculum.
Later evolved to be a five-week, 200-hour paid workforce development program, it was designed to introduce participants to a broad range of occupations within the construction industry. Trainees earn $18 an hour while completing job site-ready credentials including OSHA 30, first aid, CPR, AED, bloodborne pathogen training, flagger certification, and NCCER Core modules in areas such as electrical, HVAC, carpentry, and drywall.
“We tell our participants to take this as a start of a full-time job,” Begin said. “We have them start at 7 a.m., and they wrap up at 3:30 p.m. every afternoon. We’re trying to get them acclimated to what a career would actually look like going forward. ... I think we’ve had probably close to a thousand individuals apply for this program. We are currently in our 12th cohort. We will surpass 160 with the graduating cohort as of July.”
“Programs like this where we’re providing that training, we’re providing opportunities for individuals to get the basic knowledge about construction, get the basics down pat, and understand those functions of construction,” Brown said. “I think that is helping to shift the narrative a bit and helping to remove those barriers so you can have more people in the industry.”
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The program is hosted in the job site trailers in what TBA calls “Titans Town,” allowing for the opportunity to tour the facility, and to talk with some of the trade partners and some of the past participants.
“We have a lot of people who just pop in and like to give words of encouragement to our students. ... We have had at least half of our participants end up going to work on the stadium,” Begin said. “But our iron scope, like the structural steel, those individuals have moved on to something else because that part of the scope’s over.”
“Workforce development is a major piece within Turner,” she added. “It is one of our main core business strategies within our community and citizenship team. ... This is something that we’re hoping to move towards other projects as well to really help combat that labor shortage that we are seeing with some of these bigger projects, as well as the retiring skilled workforce.”
The workforce development program will come to an end this December, while the overall stadium project comes to an end in February 2027. The workers will spend their time doing finishing work and performing the final cleanings.
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For the future, the Turner team is considering how to apply this or a similar program to other markets.
“We’re still trying to map out what that looks like,” Begin said. “Our team has been trying to standardize how we can incorporate more workforce development programs throughout different projects.”
“Success, for this program in particular, is having those individuals leave with those certifications. ... Having those buildable certifications that they can continue their future careers on, and individuals just having the life-changing opportunity that this project has given them, whether it’s the connection to some of the trade partners out here, or it’s an apprenticeship, it’s an opportunity to support their families,” she said.
Begin stated that the program has resulted in both job placements and individuals achieving significant milestones, such as obtaining internships, acquiring reliable transportation for the first time, or getting onto a more stable pathway to an industry career. One individual now has their own apartment for the first time; another has already been hired into safety management.
Of the 150 individuals who participated in the TC2 program so far, Begin estimates the graduation rate to be 95 percent.
“I wouldn’t say that a workforce development program is right for every job,” Begin said. “This one, we had an amazing client and great community partners to help support implementing a program like this. ... It has a very large focus, especially within Turner. And I know on some of our much larger jobs, we are starting to implement what different forms of this look like, but this is the first of its kind. It’ll probably be adapted a little bit, but I absolutely do know that it is something that we are going to want to continue to do through future projects.”
“Even after this project wraps up, I know just having a program like TC2 has really opened individuals’, companies’, and other trade partners’ eyes to what a potential workforce program could look like,” she added.
"Trainings like this are so important," Brown said. "Whether we do it, or any of our competitors do something similar, it’s important that we are helping bring up that next generation of the workforce.”
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- Owner: Tennessee Titans
- General Contractor: Tennessee Builders Alliance (Turner Construction, New York, New York; AECOM Hunt, Indianapolis, Indiana; Polk & Associates Construction, Nashville, Tennessee; I.C.F. Builders & Consultants, Nashville, Tennessee)
