Last week I came across an article that honestly stopped me in my tracks. It was about a new partnership between North America’s Building Trades Unions, CPWR, a construction safety research organization, and Hard Hat Courage, a program run by the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention. On the surface it sounds like a policy announcement, but buried inside it is a statistic that I haven’t been able to shake: construction has the second-highest suicide rate of any industry in the United States, behind only mining.

THAT HIT DIFFERENT FOR ME. BECAUSE THIS ISN’T JUST AN INDUSTRY ISSUE, IT’S A COMMUNITY ISSUE. AND IT’S OUR COMMUNITY.

We Need to Talk About This

In our 2026 State of Hispanics in Construction report, we talk a lot about the barriers we face, in educational attainment, in moving up into leadership roles, in being seen and heard in this industry. But there’s a barrier we don’t talk about enough, and it’s costing lives.

So let me name the ones I think matter most to us.

Language. If you can’t access help in your own language, it might as well not exist. Many of our members, immigrant workers, non-native English speakers, can’t navigate mental health resources that were never built with them in mind. That’s not a personal failure. That’s a system gap we need to call out.

Immigration enforcement. We all feel it. The tension on the jobsite, the stress of not knowing, the fear that bleeds into every workday. You’ve told us directly, our members have shared how enforcement actions are affecting your work, your companies, and your families. About 33% of firms reported being affected by immigration enforcement actions in the past six months, either through workers no longer showing up or subcontractors losing labor. Construction Dive That fear doesn’t clock out at 5pm. It follows people home. It keeps them up at night. And it absolutely weighs on mental health in ways that broader industry campaigns often miss entirely.

Culture. Los hombres no lloran. Aguántese mijo, hágase hombre. We’ve all heard it. We’ve all felt it. There’s a deeply rooted norm in many of our communities, call it machismo, call it pride, call it survival, that tells men that asking for help is weakness. That staying silent is strength. I get where it comes from. But I also know what it costs us.

Hard Hat Courage’s message is simple: it’s okay to ask for help. Four words that go against everything some of us were raised to believe. But I think it’s time we start saying them out load.

This Is About Keeping Our Community Strong

Construction is already a tough industry. The changes happening right now, economic pressure, policy uncertainty, workforce strain, are adding stress on top of stress. And through all of it, we are still showing up, still building, still holding things together.

But checking in on each other? That’s something we can do too. Asking a coworker, a crew member, a friend, “hey, you good?”, might seem small. It isn’t. In a predominantly male industry where silence has always been the default, that question can mean everything.

THIS ISN’T ABOUT LOSING WORKERS.

IT’S ABOUT KEEPING OUR PEOPLE. OUR COMMUNITY. OUR FAMILIES.

That’s why we’re shining a light on this. Hard Hat Courage is the construction industry’s collective commitment to making it safe to talk about mental health, every day, on every jobsite. I encourage you to learn more and share it with someone who might need it.


If you or someone you know needs help, visit www.hardhatcourage.com

Si tú o alguien que conoces necesita ayuda, visita www.hardhatcourage.com