BLS Projects 5% Growth for Operating Engineers Through 2035 — Here's Why That Number Understates the Real Hiring Challenge

5 days ago

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The Bureau of Labor Statistics tracks heavy equipment operators under a specific occupational code — SOC 47-2073, "Operating Engineers and Other Construction Equipment Operators" — and the numbers behind that code tell a clear story about where this workforce is headed. As of BLS's most recent Occupational Outlook Handbook projections, the agency counted roughly 489,500 operating engineers employed in 2025, with employment projected to grow to about 511,800 by 2035: a 5% increase, adding roughly 22,300 jobs to the occupation over the decade. For contractors who depend entirely on skilled operators to run excavators, dozers, loaders, and graders, that data is worth understanding in more than headline form.

What the BLS Numbers Actually Measure

SOC 47-2073 specifically covers workers who operate heavy equipment such as excavators, bulldozers, backhoes, and loaders to move earth and materials on construction and related sites — it sits within the broader "Construction Equipment Operators" category (SOC 47-2070), which also includes the separate, smaller classification for paving, surfacing, and tamping equipment operators (SOC 47-2071), whose outlook actually differs: BLS projects a slight decline (about -1%, or roughly 400 fewer jobs) for that narrower paving-equipment category over the same period, even as the broader operating-engineer category grows. This distinction matters for contractors reading labor-market data — "construction equipment operators" as a broad category isn't monolithic, and the specific equipment category a contractor operates in can have a meaningfully different outlook than the headline number suggests.

Operating Engineers and Other Construction Equipment Operators (SOC 47-2073): roughly 489,500 employed in 2025, projected to reach 511,800 by 2035 — about 5% growth, adding roughly 22,300 positions.
Median hourly wage for the occupation has been running in the high-$20s to around $27 per hour nationally in recent BLS Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics data, with the top 10% of earners well above $45 per hour in higher-cost markets and states with strong union density.
Paving, Surfacing, and Tamping Equipment Operators (SOC 47-2071), a related but distinct category, shows a slight projected decline over the same period — a reminder that equipment-specific demand doesn't move uniformly across all operator categories.
The broader Construction Equipment Operators category overall (SOC 47-2070) is projected to grow about 4%, adding roughly 21,800 jobs — modest but positive growth, roughly in line with the average for all occupations.

Why the Growth Rate Understates the Real Hiring Challenge

A 5% growth rate sounds modest next to the more dramatic shortage narratives that circulate in construction trade press, but the growth projection only measures net new jobs — it doesn't capture the much larger number of total job openings a contractor is actually competing for, which BLS separately estimates by also accounting for replacement needs as experienced operators retire or leave the occupation. For a workforce with a meaningfully older average age than entry-level construction labor — operating a dozer or excavator well typically takes years to master, which skews the experienced end of the occupation older — replacement demand from retirements can dwarf net growth as the actual driver of annual hiring need. A contractor should read "5% growth over ten years" as a floor on hiring difficulty, not a ceiling.

The Wage Data Tells Its Own Story

BLS's Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics data for operating engineers shows a wide spread between the bottom and top of the wage distribution — roughly $18-19 per hour at the 10th percentile up to the mid-$40s per hour at the 90th percentile in recent national data, with substantial state-to-state variation layered on top (markets with union density, higher cost of living, or heavy infrastructure investment tend to sit well above the national median). That spread reflects genuine skill and experience differentiation within the occupation: an operator certified on multiple machine types, experienced with GPS/grade-control systems, and able to work unsupervised on complex grading or utility work commands wages well above an entry-level operator running more basic equipment under direct supervision. For contractors, this means wage competitiveness has to be benchmarked against the specific skill tier being hired, not a single national median.

What's Driving the Demand Side

The demand side of this projection is driven by continued investment in infrastructure, residential and commercial construction, and the ongoing need to replace an aging workforce, even as productivity gains from GPS grade control, machine-control technology, and telematics modestly offset some of what would otherwise be even stronger headcount growth. Contractors who've invested in machine-control technology sometimes find they need fewer total operator-hours per cubic yard moved, but that efficiency gain doesn't eliminate the need for skilled operators — if anything, it raises the skill bar, since operating a machine-control-equipped excavator or dozer effectively requires comfort with the technology layered on top of traditional operating skill.

Regional Variation Makes the National Number Less Useful Than It Looks

National BLS projections smooth over enormous regional variation in both wages and demand. States with heavy infrastructure spending, active aggregate and mining sectors, or strong union density — Texas, California, and several Midwestern and Northeastern states among them — report meaningfully higher operating-engineer employment concentrations and mean wages than the national average, while other regions sit well below it. A contractor benchmarking wages or planning a hiring strategy off the national median risks either overpaying in a lower-cost labor market or, more commonly, underestimating what it actually takes to compete for operators in a tight regional market where several large infrastructure or data-center projects are simultaneously bidding for the same limited pool of experienced operators.

Union Density and the Wage Gap

Operating engineers have one of the highest union membership rates among construction trades, through locals affiliated with the International Union of Operating Engineers, and union wage scales in markets with strong union density often sit well above the non-union median reflected in broad BLS averages. This creates a genuine two-tier labor market in many regions: a contractor bidding primarily non-union work benchmarks against a different effective wage floor than one bidding union-signatory work, and a contractor that bids both needs separate labor-cost models for each, similar to the private-versus-prevailing-wage distinction that shows up elsewhere in construction labor planning.

A Worked Example: The Hiring Plan That Only Looked at the Growth Rate

Illustrative example, not an actual case: a mid-size site-work contractor reviews the BLS projection showing 5% growth for operating engineers and concludes hiring should be straightforward since demand isn't growing dramatically. The company budgets a standard, modest recruiting effort for two open operator positions. What the growth-rate figure didn't capture: three of the contractor's own senior operators are within a few years of retirement, and the regional labor market is simultaneously absorbing hiring demand from a wave of infrastructure projects funded by recent federal and state investment — replacement demand and local project-driven demand both running well above the modest net national growth rate. The two open positions take four months longer to fill than planned, forcing the contractor to lean on overtime from existing crew and delay a secondary project's start.

What This Means for Training and Retention Investment

Given the gap between headline growth and actual hiring difficulty, contractors increasingly find it's cheaper to invest in developing operators internally — structured mentorship pairing experienced operators with newer hires, support for NCCER or manufacturer-run equipment operator training, and clear advancement pay scales that reward multi-machine certification — than to compete purely on recruiting in a labor market where experienced operators are, by the data, aging out faster than the net growth rate alone would suggest. Retention matters just as much as recruiting here: losing an experienced operator to a competitor means not just filling one position, but potentially losing the informal mentorship pipeline that was training the next generation underneath that operator.

How This Connects to Equipment Financing

A contractor's equipment strategy and its operator-workforce strategy are more linked than they might appear: investing in machine-control-equipped equipment can make a smaller available operator pool more productive, partially offsetting a tight labor market, and the equipment decision and the hiring decision should be planned together rather than independently. BFC finances the excavators, dozers, and grading equipment that operating engineers run every day, with terms structured around how construction businesses actually generate revenue from that equipment. Our piece on

comparing excavator cab noise and operator comfort between CAT and Komatsu covers a related factor in operator retention worth considering alongside wage competitiveness. Our piece on the CDL driver shortage and truck spec decisions covers a similar labor-market dynamic affecting a different but related occupation.

The Bottom Line

BLS projects modest, roughly 5% net growth for operating engineers and other construction equipment operators through the mid-2030s — a number that understates the real hiring challenge contractors face once replacement demand from an aging, experienced workforce and regional project-driven demand are factored in. Contractors who read past the headline growth rate, invest in internal training and advancement pathways, and benchmark wages against the actual skill tier they're hiring for are better positioned than those relying on the net growth number alone to tell them how easy the next hire will be.