As the housing industry grapples with affordability pressures, labor shortages, and a looming wave of retirements, the skilled trades have emerged as a critical part of the solution. Through its Path to Pro initiative, The Home Depot Foundation is investing in education, training, and partnerships designed to rebuild the skilled labor pipeline, starting with early exposure in schools and hands-on pathways to well-paying, resilient careers.
Courtney Jenkins, manager of national programs and strategic partnerships at The Home Depot Foundation, says, “Investing in the skilled trades is an effective way to address multiple challenges facing society today: housing affordability and availability, community resilience, and post-secondary education that will lead to financial stability.”
Below, Jenkins shares more on why reviving shop class matters more than ever, and how targeted investments can help communities rebuild faster while creating long-term opportunity in the trades.
Courtesy The Home Depot Foundation
Courtney Jenkins
What led to launching the Path to Pro Education Grants program?
Recent survey research from The Home Depot Foundation and Morning Consult highlighted a growing tension in disaster recovery: even when funding for disaster recovery and rebuilding efforts is available, skilled labor often is not.
The data showed that the shortage is slowing down rebuilding efforts in communities impacted by natural disasters, with 60% of professional contractors reporting challenges with hiring skilled labor.
While the Path to Pro Education Grants program was borne out of last year’s pilot in Southern California, these insights underscored the critical need to address the skilled labor gap by helping schools and nonprofit organizations nationwide make the physical improvements they need to attract and retain the next generation of skilled tradespeople.
The program includes an initial $1 million investment to revive shop classes. Why is bringing vocational training back into schools such an important part of solving the skilled labor gap?
For years, “shop class” was phased out of many schools in favor of a traditional four-year college track. Now, as students and parents seek high-demand, debt-free career paths, career and technical education (CTE) is seeing a major resurgence. By reinvesting in these programs, we can empower educators to provide state-of-the-art training for jobs that are resilient in the age of AI. This is a critical step toward solving the nation’s skilled labor shortage and building the workforce of the future. Education is also essential, as research suggests early exposure positively impacts up to 73% of middle schoolers’ consideration of potential careers.
How will the Path to Pro Education Grants work in practice, what kinds of schools, nonprofits, or programs are you hoping will apply?
Through the Path to Pro Education Grants program, eligible U.S.-based K-12 schools, community colleges, and nonprofits can apply for grants of up to $10,000. These funds are intended to help them purchase new tools and equipment to modernize their construction trades training programs and prepare students for lucrative, future-proof careers in fields like carpentry, electrical, HVAC, and plumbing.
The construction and trades industries are facing a wave of retirements. How urgent is the need to bring younger generations into skilled trades careers?
The skilled trades industry faces a massive retirement cliff over the next decade, with 41% of the current construction workforce set to retire by 2031. This is in addition to the industry already facing a labor shortage of 300,000, with a projected need for 4.1 million workers over the next decade. These aren’t just arbitrary numbers; the shortage is costing the residential construction industry an estimated $10.8 billion in lost productivity and longer build times. The Home Depot Foundation is committed to being part of the solution by investing in efforts like the Path to Pro Education Grants.
Many young people are still encouraged to pursue traditional four-year college paths. How is the Path to Pro initiative helping shift the perception of careers in the skilled trades?
Path to Pro empowers students to pursue the skilled trades as a strategic career choice in the age of AI. We’re seeing a “preemptive pivot” from Gen Z, who are recognizing that the trades offer a debt-free path to financial stability in an industry where entry-level jobs are not being phased out by AI. For example, one of our SkillPointe Foundation scholarship recipients, Ryder Paredes, shifted from computer science to the electrical trades due to the changing economic outlook. Even though he had no experience with tools before this, he was surprised with not only the opportunities he’ll be afforded with this career path but also how much he enjoys the hands-on aspect of his program. This is a powerful example of a growing trend.
Beyond education, how does the Path to Pro program help connect students with real career opportunities in fields like home building?
The Home Depot’s Path to Pro program is designed to create a robust pipeline of certified, job-ready candidates to fill high-demand roles. The Foundation partners with nonprofit organizations like Home Builders Institute (HBI) and Construction Ready to help youth, post-secondary students, separating military, and those in underserved areas explore career paths, gain hands-on experience, and become certified–at no cost to the individual–so they can be ready for an apprenticeship by the time they graduate. These programs and partnerships have already introduced nearly 600,000 people to careers in the construction trades and certified more than 70,000, providing them with valuable training they can use on the job right away.
How can industry partners get involved in supporting the Path to Pro initiative in their communities?
Interested schools and nonprofits are encouraged to apply for a Path to Pro Education Grant.
Looking ahead, what kind of long-term impact does the Home Depot Foundation hope to see from the Path to Pro program in addressing the national skilled labor shortage?
The long-term goal of the Path to Pro program is to create a robust and sustainable pipeline of skilled talent that can address the construction industry’s national labor shortage for years to come. By investing in education, we aim to attract the next generation of tradespeople who are looking for a career that is both stable and increasingly innovative, thus the need to help schools and trades training organizations modernize their current programs.
What brought you to your role at the Home Depot Foundation?
I started my career at The Home Depot in 2014 as a public relations intern supporting storytelling and media relations for the company’s merchandising categories, and I worked on that team for about four years. From there, I spent the next five years leading communications for The Home Depot Foundation’s Path to Pro initiatives, including the program’s launch. As I learned about the growing skilled labor gap, the lack of diversity across the construction industry, and the opportunity to connect people with meaningful careers, I began to take a more personal interest in workforce development, leading me to look for a deeper connection to this work, beyond storytelling. So, in 2023, I began working in my current role to help affect change by building training and education programs with skilled trades nonprofit partners.
