Not for the first time, the non-residential specialty trade contractors sector saw the greatest employment growth, according to the most recent Bureau of Labor Statistics report, seeing a 3.7% gain in jobs compared with where things stood a year ago.
In raw numbers, that meant that the sector is now employing 2,851,900 people, up from 2,750,300 in November of 2023.
Other big sector gainers according to the BLS: general nonresidential building, up by 3.3% over last year; and heavy and civil engineering, up by 2.6%.
Altogether, total construction industry employment increased from 8,102,000 in November of 2023 to 8,313,000 this November.
Industry employment growth, notes Anirban Basu, chief economist with the American Builders and Contractors, has “significantly outpaced the broader economy over the last year.”
Of note, said Basu in a statement, is that the job gains in November confirmed that “October’s paltry job growth was indeed a result of hurricanes Helene and Milton.”
For the larger economy, the November numbers saw a gain of 227,000 jobs. Analysts particularly liked that gain when compared with the dormant numbers of October which saw only 12,000 new jobs nationally.
“The labor market bounced back last month, as workers sidelined by storms got back on the job, and as thousands of striking Boeing employees returned to work,” exclaimed the Wall Street Journal in looking at the new figures.
Regarding the numbers from another perspective, the Financial Times reported that the “rise in the unemployment rate” suggests a “softening in the jobs market, a factor that will probably prompt the Fed to move ahead with a rate cut this month.”
That unemployment rate is now at 4.2%, nearly the highest it has been all year long, and notably above the 3.7% rate seen last November.
In a statement from the White House, President Biden remarked that the economy “has created more than 16 million jobs,” since the time he took office in January of 2021, “with jobs created every single month.”
December 9, 2024
By Garry Boulard
Photo courtesy of Pixabay
