The number of unionized workers in the nation’s construction industry was up by around 31,000 last year, according to a new report issued by the Bureau of Labor Statistics.
Overall, union membership in the building sector rose to 1,024,000 in 2021. That is an increase over the previous year when the numbers were down to 993,000.
Analysts note that that 993,000 figure may be artificially low, given the number of both union and non-union workers who lost jobs in 2020 due to the Covid-19 outbreak.
In 2019, union membership was higher, at 1,055,000 jobs.
The Bureau of Labor Statistics report additionally notes that the number of unionized workers in the public sector, at 33.9%, is more than five times as large as the those working in the private sector.
In a contrast to the early decades of union representation in the U.S. when the vast majority of organized workers were employed in blue collar jobs, the highest “unionization rates” last year were seen in such white collar fields as education and training.
Regionally, Hawaii and New York have the highest percentage of unionized work forces at 22.4% and 22.2% respectively. The state with the lowest labor jobs in 2021 was South Carolina, with 1.7%.
In Arizona, the numbers stood at 6.7%, down from 7.1% the year before. Around 8.2% of Colorado’s workforce was unionized as of 2020, dropping to 7.5% last year.
New Mexico, meanwhile, recorded 8.6% of its workforce as unionized in 2020, with that number increasing to 9.1% last year.
The number of unionized jobs in the country have been gradually declining for decades. In the early 1950s the figure was in excess of 32%. As of 2021, that number stood at 10.3%.
By Garry Boulard
