The number of women working in the nation’s construction industry has reached its greatest peak in the last two decades, according to a new report.
Based on figures reported by the Bureau of Labor Statistics’ Current Population Survey, women now make up 11.3% of the industry’s total workforce.
That figure stood at around 3% in the late 1970s and stubbornly remained there for the next two decades. The forward progress after that was challenged during the Covid 19 pandemic, when an estimated 1 million women left the construction labor force.
For all of that, current BLS figures show that women workers are currently particularly well represented in “occupations such as office and administrative support, management, and business and financial operations.”
The figures, representing hundreds of thousands of jobs, also include work in the field. Such jobs are seeing women comprising some 4% of the industry’s workforce in construction and extraction work.
Around 3% of installation, maintenance, and repair occupations are also now held by women, while women make up 6% of the generally defined “production occupations.”
Overall, the number of women working as carpenters, electricians, heavy equipment operators, and welders has increased by 7% since 2020.
In addition, according to the American Institute of Constructors, women now make up roughly 20% of all leadership positions in construction companies.
Despite the progress, notes the publication Construction Today, “women in construction still face higher rates of attrition than men, often due to workplace cultures that lack inclusivity or fail to accommodate work-life balance.”
September 21, 2026
By Garry Boulard
Photo courtesy of Unsplash
