Key takeaways
- The growth of Hispanic talent in the construction industry outpaced that of the industry as a whole between 2023 and 2024.
- Education helped non-Hispanics move up or out of entry-level positions, while limited post-secondary education kept Hispanics largely in entry-level roles.
- The construction industry now has about 3.89 million Hispanic workers.
Hispanic workers continue to play an outsized role in the U.S. construction workforce, underscoring the community’s growing importance to the nation’s housing industry as builders struggle to keep up with demand.
The total number of Hispanic construction workers rose 4% to 3.89 million in 2024 from 3.73 million the prior year, according to the latest annual State of Hispanics in Construction report. The National Hispanic Construction Alliance published the report on Tuesday. The report sources data from its own members, Federal Reserve Economic Data, the U.S. Census Bureau, and the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.
The Hispanic talent's growth rate exceeds that of the entire industry workforce. The industry has a total of 12.44 million workers, up 1.19% from 12.29 million workers in 2023.
The growth comes as policymakers and industry leaders push to increase housing supply nationwide. Labor shortages remain a key obstacle. The National Association of Realtors reports the country needs 1.2 million residences to meet demand.
"Non-Hispanics are leaving entry-level production roles, because they have more options," said Sergio Barajas, executive director of National Hispanic Construction Alliance, by email. "Hispanics, with lower average educational attainment, are largely concentrated in those same entry-level segments, and are filling the gap left behind."
While immigration policy changes may have impacted the Hispanic workforce in 2025, Barajas said the reported talent pool number in the report likely remained about the same. Some Hispanics have excluded themselves from Census data for years due to fear, and so those are likely not reflected in these kinds of reports.
"We always imagine a cushion in the data and numbers," he said.
Although Hispanic workers are helping sustain the industry’s core production jobs, non-Hispanic workers continue to dominate higher-paying management, engineering and supervisory roles. About 52% of non-Hispanic construction workers have postsecondary credentials, compared with roughly 24% of Hispanic workers. About 76% of Hispanic construction workers have no formal education beyond high school, according to the report.
"The data tells a more nuanced story, one driven as much by who is leaving the industry's core production roles as by who is entering them," Barajas said.