The same industry is short of people and cutting real pay. That isn’t a paradox. It’s a reallocation, and the June data shows exactly where it’s running.
NAHB’s analysis of Bureau of Labor Statistics data found average hourly earnings for residential building workers rose just 1.0% year over year in June 2026, to $39.74 an hour. That’s down from a 9.4% peak in mid-2024. Adjusted for inflation, real wages fell 2.4% year over year. Real wage growth had peaked at plus 6.2% during 2024.
Nonresidential is bidding, residential can’t match
In the same period, open and unfilled construction jobs rose. NAHB credits data center construction for holding up overall demand for construction workers, which is the cleanest available statement of the split: hyperscale sites and the power work behind them are bidding electricians and pipefitters up, while residential builders squeezed by expensive acquisition and development credit and soft single-family permitting can’t keep pace with inflation.
The comparison set puts it in context. Residential building wages still run 8.2% above manufacturing at $36.74 an hour and 22.1% above transportation and warehousing at $32.55. They sit 5.4% below mining and logging at $42.01. Homebuilding is not a low-wage industry. It’s an industry whose wage advantage over adjacent sectors is eroding while a competing construction sector pays more.
What a 1% raise does to recruiting
A framer who took a 1% raise this year while rent and grocery inflation ran hotter has a standing offer two counties over on a hyperscale site. That’s the practical consequence, and it compounds. Crews don’t leave one at a time; they leave with the foreman who recruited them.
Expect residential labor availability to deteriorate fastest in exactly the markets where data center construction concentrates: North Carolina, Indiana, Illinois, Texas and Virginia. Builders in those states are competing for labor against a customer with a different cost structure and a schedule penalty measured in megawatts.
One methodological note that cuts against the headline. This series covers employees of residential building firms, which means new single-family construction excluding for-sale builders, plus residential remodelers. It excludes specialty trade contractors, which is where most of the electricians and mechanical trades actually sit. The subcontractor wage picture is likely tighter than these numbers suggest, not looser.
The exception that proves the split
Large publicly subsidized residential work behaves differently, because it’s priced against prevailing wage schedules and phased over enough years to absorb escalation. The Fulton and Elliott-Chelsea Houses redevelopment in Manhattan will build up to 5,510 apartments over about eight years, on a schedule set by resident relocation rather than by lease-up.
Market-rate builders don’t have that runway. They have a spec house, a construction loan and an interest reserve, and the wage they can pay is whatever the exit price supports.
Source: NAHB Eye on Housing, analyzing BLS Current Employment Statistics.