Regional Competition and the Policy Levers
Labor has graduated from an afterthought to a first-order siting constraint. Skilled technicians do not relocate easily, so each metro has a roughly fixed pool that every nearby project bids over, and the crowded hubs that drew everyone in with their trained workforce can turn that advantage into a liability. As for raising the ceiling: match the lever to the timeframe. Redistribution and automation are the only fast moves, immigration can seed senior experience where rules allow, and only training genuinely grows the pool, slowly, and only if you retain the people you train.
Knowledge check
Why is raising wages not a solution to the industry-wide operations labor shortage, even though it works for an individual operator?
Show the answer
Because higher wages help one firm win the competition for a fixed pool of technicians but do not add anyone to that pool. Across the whole industry a bidding war over scarce people raises costs without raising capacity, so compensation is a redistribution lever, not a cure for the aggregate scarcity, which only training can genuinely relieve over time.