While artificial intelligence (AI) might be able to write a bad version of this article at a much lower price than what a human writer charges, the technology has its limitations.
“AI, without question, is changing work,” Lowe’s CEO Marvin Ellison told The Wall Street Journal. “But somebody will still be required to crawl under your sink and fix a leak, get your HVAC working, or do construction on a data center.”
Those people, the skilled laborers who build and fix stuff, are in short supply.
“Low labor force participation and skills gaps are especially acute in manufacturing, construction, and other skilled trades, where for every five workers who retire, only two replacements enter the workforce. By 2030, an estimated 2.1 million skilled trades jobs could go unfilled, with potential economic losses reaching $1 trillion annually,” according to the U.S. Department of Education.
That’s a problem Ellison wants Lowe’s to be part of fixing.
Lowe’s partners on workforce initiative
The Lowe’s Foundation has launched the Building Futures Skilled Trades Coalition, the largest cross-sector skilled trades coalition in U.S. history, to help train and develop one million people for skilled trades careers by 2035.
This national alliance is backed by over 75 American educators, businesses, workforce organizations, industry vendors, and stakeholders across the skilled trades ecosystem, including corporate leaders such as Nvidia, AT&T, Bank of America, Carrier, General Motors, DeWalt, and Duke Energy.
“The next industrial revolution won’t be built by algorithms alone. It will be built by the millions of skilled trade professionals who power, connect, and move this country forward,” Ellison said in a press release.
The coalition also shared its goals:
- Change the perception of careers in the skilled trades by challenging outdated narratives that position college as the default path to success.
- Invest, connect, and scale proven training and credentialing solutions by bringing together educators, businesses, workforce organizations, corporate leaders, industry vendors, and other stakeholders to address shared workforce challenges and expand what works.
- Collectively measure progress from training to employment by establishing shared measures that help the coalition understand what’s working, identify gaps, and track outcomes across the workforce ecosystem.
“Across construction, automotive manufacturing, telecommunications, energy industry, HVAC, technology and financial services, the coalition will use these insights to strengthen connections between training providers and employers, improve pathways to in-demand jobs and help more people translate their training and credentials into meaningful, long-term careers,” the coalition shared.
Lowe’s and partners are fighting a real problem
Deloitte’s 2026 Engineering and Construction Industry Outlook showed a snapshot of just part of the skilled labor shortage.
“The E&C industry continues to face significant labor shortages, a challenge expected to intensify by 2026 — with a projected need for 499,000 new workers, up from 439,000 in 2025. Without strategic initiatives to broaden and upskill the talent pipeline, the industry risks exacerbating project delays, cost overruns, and margin pressures,” Deloitte shared.
That’s not an emerging problem. It’s one that’s already here.
“The economic repercussions of labor shortages in E&C are already evident and expected to intensify. Construction wages have increased 4.2% year-over-year as of August 2025. If the labor gap persists, the industry could potentially lose nearly $124 billion in construction output due to unfilled positions,” the study showed.
More Retail:
- Home Depot is making a big bet on cautious consumers
- Another state just banned a controversial retail pricing practice
- JPMorgan just flagged a slow-build food crisis
RTM Nexus CEO Dominick Miserandino thinks that Lowe’s is smart to get ahead of the problem.
“It’s completely brilliant because the backlog in AI, the bottleneck in AI, that is, is not going to be more computers, but the physical people to place them, the HVAC, the electricians,” he told TheStreet.
AI, he noted, will replace many fields, but there’s some work it just can’t do.
“The AI is going to be doing that data entry. AI is going to be doing the social media tests and the graphic design and the marketing, but the physicality of helping implement the AI, the cell phone towers, the EV charging to get to your location. All those physicality traits are going to become more and more necessary in this near-term economy,” he added.
