AED Foundation's $7 billion figure is three estimates multiplied across approximately 10,000 dealer roles

The AED Foundation’s 2026 report on diesel technician shortages leads with two numbers: approximately 10,000 technicians short each year at ag and construction dealers, and $7 billion in lost shop and parts business annually. Randall Reilly prepared the report. A dealer reading the headline will ask how it is built. The methodology appendix answers that, and it labels its own inputs as estimates.

Attrition plus dealer growth targets make the 10,000

The report starts from Bureau of Labor Statistics employment data for dealers. In the report’s table, that dealer technician base is 72,390 across ag and construction combined. It then applies two BLS separation rates: three percent retire each year; five percent change occupations. That produces 5,792 roles a year to replace through attrition.

The growth figure comes from a different source. Randall Reilly surveyed 126 US dealers and asked how much they expected to grow technician headcount over three years to meet growth goals and customer needs. The headcount-weighted average answer was 17.4% over three years, annualized to 5.8% a year, giving 4,199 additional roles. Combined with attrition, Chart 3 puts the total at approximately 10,000 needed roles a year.

About 42% of that headline therefore comes from dealers’ stated growth targets rather than measured exits. Retirements alone account for 2,172 of the total, about 22%. A second table covering all ag and construction employers, using BLS growth projections, shows 1,400 growth roles against the 4,199 in the dealer table. The report does not explain that gap. The combined total is a hiring need, not a count of seats currently empty; the report separately cites a 10.7% vacancy rate.

I am staying with the report’s own description of its BLS dealer employment series rather than re-labelling that series with a NAICS title the appendix may not use the same way an industry analyst would. The arithmetic that matters for a dealer is attrition plus surveyed growth, not the taxonomy fight.

$185 an hour, 2,000 hours, and .89 parts dollars

The dollar figure multiplies those approximately 10,000 combined dealer roles by an estimated revenue loss per unfilled role. The report assumes each vacant seat would have generated 2,000 billable hours a year at an average of $185 an hour, or $370,000 in lost labor billing per role.

Parts sit on top. The report credits Brian Miller, an ag dealer consultant at Time Service in southwest Iowa, with .89 in parts sold for every dollar of labor billed. Applied to $370,000 in labor, that adds $329,300, for $699,300 per role. Across those roles, the product rounds to $7 billion.

By sector: ag uses $170 an hour, producing $642,600 per role and about $2 billion across 3,538 ag roles. Construction uses $200 an hour, giving $756,000 per role and about $5 billion across 6,453 construction roles.

The note under the chart reads: “Billable hours, hourly rates and parts revenue per billable hour are estimates based on industry averages.” The report calls the result gross revenue, not profit.

Canada uses the same formula with local inputs

The Canada edition, published jointly by the Canada Equipment Dealers Foundation and the AED Foundation, runs the same revenue calculation with local figures: 1,800 billable hours, CA$190 an hour, and CA$0.86 in parts per labor dollar. Those inputs give CA$636,120 per role. Canada counts 1,263 roles short a year, which produces CA$803 million.

Replacement differs. Canada applies a single 2.33% combined replacement rate from Canadian occupational data; the US version splits a 3% retirement rate and a 5% occupation-change rate from BLS. Both then use the same 5.8% annual growth rate from the dealer survey. Because hours, rates and ratios differ, the dollar totals cannot be added together or used as a check on each other.

How the figure moved through trade coverage

Construction Equipment Guide covered the foundation’s release on September 10, carrying the approximately 10,000 and $7 billion figures without a country split and without sample sizes. Those sizes are in the reports: 126 US dealers, 40 Canadian dealers, 9 OEMs, 33 technicians and 41 schools. US surveys ran in January and February 2026; Canadian surveys ran January through March.

A Precision Farming Dealer post on October 8 repeats the $7 billion and attributes it to the foundation’s research without walking through the calculation. The author, John Schmeiser, is identified in his bio as executive director of the Canada Equipment Dealers Foundation, which co-published the Canada edition, and as chief operating officer of Vi by visorPRO, described there as an AI-powered aftermarket platform for equipment dealerships. Those two roles matter when a reader weighs the post’s framing that AI tools can stretch existing technician capacity. The $7 billion figure itself still comes from the foundation’s report.