Multiskilled Crews Build Up to 38% Faster: What It Means for Jobs

Here's a construction story with genuinely good news in it. On November 12, 2026, Associated Builders and Contractors (ABC) released the final report in a three-part research series from the Simplar Foundation, and the headline is a big one: multiskilled crews finished work in 22% to 38% fewer workdays than a modeled single-trade approach would have needed (ABC via GlobeNewswire, Nov 12, 2026).

Flip it around and it's even starker. Keeping every worker locked into one trade would have taken 28% to 62% more workdays to do the same work.

If you work in construction, want to, or hire people who do, this one is worth a proper look.

What the research actually measured

This wasn't a survey of opinions. Researchers from Arizona State University, the University of Kansas and UNC Charlotte dug through real project labor records: nearly 90,000 labor hours across 18 projects and 11 contractors (Simplar Foundation).

A few findings stood out to me:

• On 73% of project days, a single-trade staffing model would have left at least one trade short of workers.
• On the busiest days, single-trade crews needed more than a third more people to keep up.
• Researchers logged 80 different trade and skill combinations across 18 trades, and multiskilled workers used an average of 3.2 different trades or skills per project.

Across the whole series, ABC says multiskilled crews spent 39% more of their time directly advancing construction work and cut waiting and idle time by 68%. Field trials showed production rates up 37% to 50%.

The bit I like most: the researchers are clear the gains don't come from people working faster or harder. They come from fewer handoffs, less standing around waiting for the next trade, and qualified people being allowed to use all the skills they have. As principal investigator Brian Lines of the University of Kansas put it, the benefits come "from giving qualified workers the flexibility to apply their skills across multiple tasks."

Why this lands right now

The timing matters. US construction employment slipped by 3,000 jobs in October to 8,367,000, but that headline hides a split. Nonresidential contractors added 13,300 workers while residential builders and subcontractors cut 16,400 (Construction Today, Nov 2026). We covered that divide last week.

Meanwhile the pool of experienced people looking for work keeps shrinking. Unemployed workers with recent construction experience fell to 363,000, the lowest October figure since 2018, and the construction unemployment rate hit 3.6%. Average hourly earnings for production and nonsupervisory construction workers reached $39.70, up 5.2% on a year earlier, against 3.3% across the private sector.

So you've got data centers, industrial plants and infrastructure soaking up workers, homebuilders shedding them, and not enough experienced people to go around. ABC's own Construction Confidence Index has nearly half of contractors expecting to add staff over the next six months.

Multiskilling is one practical answer. If the same crew can frame, hang drywall and handle finishes, a contractor doesn't need to wait for three separate subs to line up. And a framer laid off by a homebuilder who also has drywall, concrete or low-voltage skills is far easier to place on a commercial job.

The realistic view

I'm optimistic about this, but let's be straight about the limits.

ABC represents merit shop (largely non-union) contractors, and it's using the research to push lawmakers ahead of the new Congress. Trade jurisdiction lines have been debated in this industry for decades, and not everyone will read these numbers the same way. The study also compares real multiskilled crews against a modeled single-trade alternative, not two identical real projects side by side.

And multiskilling doesn't replace licensed work. Your electrician still needs to be a licensed electrician. The win is in the gaps between those specialist tasks, where people with broader skills keep the job moving instead of waiting.

Still, 18 real projects and 90,000 logged hours is serious evidence, and it points in a clear direction.

What it means for your career

Here's my take if you're building a career in construction or property:

Stack your skills. A worker with three solid trades is more valuable, more employable and harder to lay off than a specialist in one. If your employer offers cross-training, take it. If they don't, look at community college programs, apprenticeships and manufacturer certifications.

Get documented. ABC is calling for policies that "recognize demonstrated worker competencies." That means credentials you can prove. NCCER credentials, OSHA 10 and OSHA 30 cards, and trade-specific certifications all count.

Moving from residential to commercial? This is your bridge. Commercial sites value flexible crew members, and with construction wages growing at their fastest clip in years, broad skills are getting rewarded.

If you're a site manager or superintendent, learn how to plan around multiskilled crews. Scheduling tools and AI-assisted planning (Procore, Autodesk Construction Cloud, or general assistants like Grok Bot, ChatGPT or Claude for drafting labor plans) can help you map skills to daily tasks. The managers who can squeeze 20-plus percent off a schedule will be in hot demand.

In Canada too. Canadian builders face the same squeeze as government housing and infrastructure plans ramp up, so broad, provable skills travel well north of the border.

America has more to build than its workforce can currently handle. That's a challenge, but for anyone willing to learn more than one trade, it's also a real opportunity.

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