WASHINGTON, DC — On November 6 the Bureau of Labor Statistics released its employment report for the month of October. For the month, the construction industry lost 3,000 jobs (on net) in October. On a year-over-year basis, industry employment has grown by 124,000 jobs (an increase of 1.5%).

Nonresidential construction employment increased by 13,300 positions, with gains in all three subcategories:

• Nonresidential specialty trade added the most jobs, increasing by 7,900 positions.
• Nonresidential building added 2,900 jobs.
• Heavy and civil engineering added 2,500 jobs.

The construction unemployment rate was 3.6% last month. Unemployment across all industries decreased to 4.1%.

Tight Labor Market, Rising Wages

“The construction industry lost jobs for the first time since February,” said ABC Chief Economist Anirban Basu. “As has been the case, however, job losses continued to be entirely concentrated on the residential side of the industry. Nonresidential construction employment, buoyed by the ongoing data center boom, expanded yet again and has grown more than twice as fast as economywide employment over the past year.

“Nonresidential payrolls should continue to expand in the coming months; nearly 50% of contractors expect to increase their staffing levels over the next six months, according to ABC’s Construction Confidence Index, while fewer than 12% expect to cut workers,” said Basu.

“The October jobs report provided yet more evidence of reemerging construction worker shortages,” said Basu. “The industry’s unemployment rate of 3.6% matches 2018 as the lowest October level since the turn of the century, and this labor market tightness is causing rapid wage escalation. Average hourly earnings for construction employees grew at the fastest monthly pace in over three years in October and are now up 4.7% year over year, significantly more than the 3.1% average wage growth across all industries.”

Visit abc.org/economics for the Construction Backlog Indicator and Construction Confidence Index, plus analysis of spending, employment, job openings and the Producer Price Index.