Overall wage and benefits for unionized workers in the construction industry increased by just under 5% last year, according to a just-released report.
The Washington-based Construction Labor Research Council report notes that union/management settlements including health and welfare, as well as retirement benefits, were up by anywhere from 3.6% to 55.5% in 2025, with those increases being part of a steady pattern ongoing since the year 2020.
Regionally, the increases were largest at 5.4% in the Northwest, and at their most modest in the long-union dominated Northeast at 4.3%.
By profession, plumbers and pipefitters saw increases topping out at 5.6%. Carpenters, electricians, and cement masons all saw 4.9% increases, closely followed by glaziers at 4.8% and teamsters at 4.7%.
Looking at benefit increases in the industry in general, the report notes that the “trend of rising pay increases has leveled off over the past two years, yet the average increase remains at its highest mark.”
Such increases have largely been in response to inflation pressures particularly on display from 2021 to 2023, in an industry effort to “attract more construction workers to the industry,” while creating a “new norm for union craft pay increases.”
The council adds that it expects “first-year increases to continue to rise modestly in 2026 and 2027.”
February 9, 2026
By Garry Boulard
Photo courtesy of Pixabay
