When the Bureau of Labor Statistics tallies its latest data, construction adds more than $16,000 per person annually to the U.S. economy. For site selectors and economic developers evaluating where to land a project, that number is more than a headline — it’s a signal about what a community can absorb, sustain, and grow.

Commercial real estate construction — everything outside residential and multifamily — generated an estimated $5.6 trillion in economic activity in 2024 on $2.19 trillion in direct spending, accounting for roughly one-fifth of total U.S. GDP. The local impact of that activity averages $1.5 trillion annually, with the economic multiplier translating to more than $1.6 billion per year for a mid-sized city of 100,000 people, and upwards of $128 million for a small city of 8,000.

These aren’t abstract figures. They represent the flows — wages, materials, subcontractor spend, tax revenue — that determine whether a location can support a major new facility over the long term.

The Multiplier in Practice

Each dollar spent on construction returns roughly three dollars to the local economy. Because commercial construction spend flows heavily into wages, materials, and local subcontractors rather than out-of-market procurement, that return is largely captured at the community level.

The common objection — that construction’s economic impact is temporary — misses what the activity creates. Brookings Institution research is consistent on this point: construction is the initial phase of infrastructure investment, and sustained growth comes from the mobility, productivity, and secondary development that infrastructure makes possible.

A manufacturing facility, hospital, research campus, or energy installation doesn’t stop contributing when the last worker leaves the site. It generates permanent jobs, sustained tax base, and ancillary development that compounds over time. For EDOs and site selectors, the relevant question isn’t whether construction activity is temporary — it’s whether the built asset and the community around it are positioned to capture long-term value.

Energy Investment and Rural Communities

The geography of construction investment is shifting. Rural communities across the country are absorbing significant capital through energy infrastructure — solar generation, battery storage, grid upgrades — that brings both immediate project spend and longer-term workforce and tax implications.

These projects deliver more than kilowatts. Solar and storage facilities create property tax revenue in areas where the tax base has historically been constrained, and they create a construction workforce footprint that, with intentional training programs attached, can seed a skilled labor pipeline for future industrial attraction. Water treatment plants, power plants, and similar utility infrastructure follow the same pattern: the presence of reliable, modern resources — and the workforce to maintain them — is itself a site selection differentiator that attracts additional business investment over time.

Data Centers and the Workforce Demand Surge

The data center sector illustrates the scale of what’s ahead. CBRE projects more than $150 billion in data center construction currently underway or in advanced development — nearly five times the estimated $50 billion spent in 2024 — with an anticipated economic impact approaching $405 billion across national and local economies. At an average construction cost of $1,750 per square foot and an economic impact of nearly $5,000 per square foot, these facilities represent some of the highest-multiplier projects in the current development pipeline.

The activity currently supports an estimated 975,000 jobs in and around data center facilities. The constraint isn’t capital — it’s labor. Thousands of electricians and skilled craft workers are needed to build these facilities, and the communities best positioned to attract and retain this investment are those with the training infrastructure to supply that workforce.

Workforce Pipeline as a Site Selection Signal

The Associated General Contractors of America projects that construction industry demand for new talent will accelerate 30 percent from 2026 to 2027, even amid macroeconomic headwinds. But the skilled labor gap isn’t unique to construction — manufacturing, semiconductor fabrication, advanced energy, and technology all face the same structural shortfall. For EDOs, that convergence is the story.

Communities that have invested in integrated workforce pipelines — career and technical education programs, registered apprenticeships, contractor-employer-education partnerships — are better equipped to compete for major projects across multiple industries simultaneously. The construction sector has spent decades building this infrastructure, and regions that have aligned with it gain a compounding advantage.

Arizona’s experience is instructive. A network of career and technical education centers — including Western Maricopa Education Center (West-MEC), East Valley Institute of Technology, and Metro Tech High School — allows students to pursue industry training alongside regular coursework and gain hands-on experience in actual industry environments. Fewer than 10 percent of school districts nationwide offer stand-alone CTE programs; only nine states have comparable systems.

The payoff is visible in the semiconductor sector. West-MEC’s Northeast Campus recently added an Advanced Manufacturing with Cleanroom and Welding building and an electric vehicle training facility. Its Advanced Manufacturing Cleanroom — the nation’s first K–12 CTE semiconductor cleanroom of its size — was developed in collaboration with TSMC, Amkor, and the SEMI Foundation. That kind of asset doesn’t just train workers for existing employers; it is itself a recruitment tool for future investment.

Arizona State University’s recent $250 million Interdisciplinary Science and Technology Building, which will offer more than 100 courses in advanced manufacturing, robotics, smart manufacturing, and energy development, represents a similar signal. The facilities being built today — research labs, training centers, cleanrooms — are the infrastructure for the workforce of the next decade. For site selectors evaluating talent supply and for EDOs building their pitch, the question to answer is: what does our region’s training infrastructure signal to a prospective employer?

The Infrastructure Underneath the Infrastructure

Construction investment creates the built environment that economic activity requires. But the communities that capture the most durable benefit from that investment are those that treat workforce development as infrastructure in its own right — built intentionally, maintained continuously, and aligned with the industries they want to attract.

For site selectors, a community’s training ecosystem is a leading indicator — not just of available labor today, but of a location’s capacity to grow with an operation over time. The $1.5 trillion that construction puts into local economies every year doesn’t flow evenly. It concentrates in places prepared to receive it.