Dycom Industries is ramping up its Dycom Industries skilled trades recruitment drive, offering new hires two weeks of paid holiday from their first day, as the company’s chief executive warns the United States faces a structural shortage of hands-on workers that could leave 2.1 million trade jobs unfilled by 2030.
Dan Peyovich, president and chief executive of Dycom Industries, made the comments at Fortune’s COO Summit in Scottsdale, Arizona. ‘There’s no doubt there’s a skilled trade shortage now,’ he said.
The construction industry alone is currently facing more than 550,000 unfilled positions, with potential economic losses from the broader trades shortfall reaching $1 trillion annually by 2030, according to the U.S. Department of Education.
Dycom Industries skilled trades growth backed by $1.95bn acquisition
Dycom, which builds telecommunications and utility infrastructure, employs about 20,000 skilled workers. The headcount has grown partly on the back of a $1.95 billion acquisition of a data centre electrical contractor in 2025, as part of a push into AI-era infrastructure.
That contractor, Power Solutions, specialises in electrical infrastructure for data centres in the Greater Washington D.C., Maryland, and Virginia area (the world’s largest data centre hub) according to a Dycom Industries official announcement on Globe Newswire.
Power Solutions’ annual revenue is expected to be approximately $1.0 billion for CY2025, with a four-year revenue compound annual growth rate of approximately 15%, according to Dycom Industries Q3 2026 Presentation Materials.
Peyovich said surging demand for the infrastructure behind AI (from fibre networks to data centres) is colliding with a persistent shortage of workers willing or prepared to do hands-on jobs.
Couch-dwelling recruits and a 49-acre training campus
The Dycom Industries skilled trades recruitment challenge, Peyovich said, is unlike anything the sector has faced before.
‘Filling the skilled workforce in today’s world is not like it used to be,’ he said. ‘You don’t have people that have a lot of outside-elements exposure or working on farms that you can pull in.’
He described candidates who arrive with little to no hands-on experience, framing one scenario as ‘the kid playing XBOX at home on his couch’ being upskilled to work with tools and customers in demanding outdoor conditions.
To attract those workers, Peyovich said companies must go beyond salary. At Dycom, new hires receive two weeks of paid holiday on their first day, rather than having to accumulate it over time.
Earlier this year, Dycom announced plans to build a 49-acre immersive training campus in Georgia to prepare a new generation for skilled trades work.
Other major companies have accelerated similar efforts. BlackRock committed $100 million to skilled trade training programmes designed to reach 50,000 workers over the next five years. Home improvement retailer Lowe’s pledged $250 million over the next decade to train 250,000 skilled trades workers.
Peyovich, who began his own career as a carpenter before moving into corporate leadership, said he hopes the current moment represents a lasting shift in how society values trade careers. ‘I still hope that in my lifetime people really see [skilled trades] as being just as an attractive track as going through college,’ he said.
Ollie O’Donoghue, head of research at Cognizant, speaking at the same Fortune conference, cautioned that while trades such as plumbing will still require hands-on labour, the surrounding work (diagnostics, planning, scheduling) is increasingly vulnerable to AI-driven change. Peyovich agreed that AI can add value to hands-on roles, citing improvements to safety and efficiency.
Dycom’s Georgia training campus is due to open as the company continues to expand its workforce to meet data centre and fibre network demand.
