The American Trades Index
How many people are licensed to do skilled work in America, where they are, and at what level. Published free every quarter from the state licensing boards themselves. No account, permanent links, free to republish.
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Published free every quarter, straight from the state licensing boards. This is the first print. As of 2026-08-09 we hold 1,550,721 active licenses, with 44 states clearing our coverage bar.
Masters are 12.7% of the licensed workforce, and every shortage story is about them. In most states a master is what legally qualifies a company to operate. The tier is not a seniority label, it is permission to trade, and when one leaves a company the company stops being able to work.
The levels add to 1,550,721 exactly, including 35 records we have not yet placed on the ladder. Federal jobs data estimates how many electricians work somewhere. It cannot tell you how many hold a master license in your county today.
Are there enough apprentices to replace the journeymen retiring?
That is what the pipeline ratio measures: apprentices for every journeyman. Above 1.0 the trade is replacing itself faster than it ages out. Below it, the pool is thinning.
The denominator is 21 states, not 44, and that is the whole discipline of this number. Only 28 registers license both tiers at all. Seven of those record apprentices as a residual rather than a real registration: Alabama lists 4 apprentices against 12,923 journeymen. Including them drags the ratio to 0.492, and that movement would be filing practice, not the workforce.
We publish the basis with the figure and hold it fixed between prints. A ratio whose denominator moves quietly is a number someone can catch shifting.
Look up any state.
Click a state to see what its board licenses, what it does not, and why the numbers are not comparable across state lines.
How we get to the number.
- What countsActive licenses only. Expired and revoked records are kept, but never counted as supply.
- ReadingEvery board read in full, every night. No sampling and no partial updates.
- CheckingFive checks before a night counts. So adding a new source can never look like the workforce growing.
- PublishingA state publishes once we hold 1,500 active licenses. Below that we say coverage is in progress rather than print a number.
- SourcingWe only publish what a board actually said. Anything we inferred from a missing record stays internal.
- CorrectionsOpen to anyone. Licence holders correct their own records and we keep the evidence.
What lands in your inbox.
Four things, in the same order, every quarter.
- The printLicensed trades by market and skill level. With per-state counts and the date it came from.
- The ratioApprentices per journeyman, tracked over time. And exactly how we calculate it.
- What movedNew licenses, ladder moves, classification changes and expirations. By market, never by name.
- RevisionsAnything we restated since last quarter, and why. Method changes labeled separately from real movement.
The first print is being prepared now. There are no back issues yet, and we would rather say so than manufacture a publication history. Subscribe and the first one lands the day it publishes.
Take the number. Use it however you like.
Every chart downloads as PNG and SVG with attribution built in, every figure has a permanent link, and nothing is behind an email wall. Reporters and analysts are welcome.