Aspire's 2026 Labor Survey: Reading the Crew Numbers

What does Aspire's 2026 survey say about labor?

Aspire's 2026 Commercial Landscape Industry Report says 54 percent of commercial contractors cite recruiting and retaining staff as a major business risk to meeting their goals. The finding comes from a survey of 1,015 commercial landscape contractors with fieldwork in May 2025, according to Aspire's October 2025 press release. Aspire is a software company, so every figure here is vendor-reported.

That 54 percent is a useful signal about where the industry's attention sits. It is not a count of empty seats on your mowing crew this week, and it does not tell you how fast your operators leave. Read it as a prompt to check your records, not as a verdict on your labor pool.

How was the sample built, and what does that limit?

Coverage of the release describes respondents across varied regions, revenue tiers and business maturity levels. That breadth is helpful, but an average across 1,015 firms can hide a crew that is short in one region and fully staffed in another. A contractor in a northern market with a short season and a contractor in a warm-climate market running year-round will feel labor pressure in very different ways.

The survey records what contractors reported about their situation. It does not audit payroll, vacancy durations or separation reasons, which are the records a mowing company actually needs. Those records sit in your office, and the report cannot stand in for them.

What else did the report find about the same contractors?

Labor shares the page with money worries. According to trade coverage of the report, 60 percent of contractors name economic uncertainty or a possible recession as a main threat, and 48 percent cite material costs as a top business risk. Another 37 percent expect equipment and material costs to rise 10 percent or more.

On the outlook, 42 percent expect a stronger market in 2026 than in 2025, while 38 percent expect about the same. A crew plan that adds headcount competes for the same budget that absorbs those cost increases, so labor numbers should never be read alone. Treat these figures as vendor-reported summaries, not audited totals.

Why does the 2026 label need a second look?

Trade coverage notes that the report was released in late 2025 under the 2026 name, so the label may refer to a forward-looking edition rather than conditions in 2026. Check the publication date and the fieldwork window before you place the report in a planning memo. Spring 2025 fieldwork is well over a year old as this article goes to press.

Keep the citation exact. Calling the result a 2026 condition would overstate what respondents said in May 2025, and a reader who checks the dates will notice the gap.

How do you test the headline against your records?

Start with the records you already keep. A short audit shows whether the industry concern matches your operation, and it gives you something a trade survey cannot. Set your thresholds before you run the numbers, so the audit cannot quietly confirm what you hoped to see. If your system holds two years of history, use all of it. Work through these five checks:

Read the results against the season, not the calendar year. A crew that turns over heavily in March may be fine by July, and an industry average cannot make that distinction. Once the numbers are in, you can decide whether the labor concern is a crew problem, a scheduling problem or a bidding problem.

• Count open crew seats by week, then divide the weeks with a vacancy by total weeks to see how often the crew ran short.
• Log the days from posting to a filled operator seat for each role, and note which roles stayed open longest.
• Record each separation with its reason and tenure, so early quits are separated from planned departures.
• Tally scheduled mowing hours that went unperformed, were reassigned or were subcontracted, along with bids declined for lack of crew.
• Compare turnover against season length, since a short northern season and a year-round crew face different pressure.

What does a crew plan look like when the gap is real?

If your records show a real gap, the answer is rarely one lever. The options include recruiting, retention pay, cross-training, trimming scope on low-margin contracts, and changing which tasks need a person in the seat. Each has a cost and a timeline, and the labor survey cannot choose among them. Your bid log and the audit above can rank them.

Robotic mowing is one lever among these. Service Robot Co. is a commercial robot integrator for US businesses. We lease robots through financing on a 3-year lease, with one fixed lease quote given after a site assessment. We select robots across manufacturers, then deploy, integrate, train and service each unit through a nationwide US engineer network. A lease only makes sense where your records show mowing hours the crew cannot cover, so the site assessment should begin with those hours, not with the machine.

Where should the headline stop?

Do not use the 54 percent to forecast your vacancies, to set a wage target, or to justify a headcount you have not tested. The survey cannot see your local labor pool, your wage competition or your season. A figure about contractors in general is a starting question, and your records answer it.

The honest use is narrow. The report confirms that workforce risk is widely felt across commercial landscape contractors, and a mowing company's crew plan should be tested against its own history rather than assumed. The vendor's number opens the conversation, and your records settle it.