Nearly all of the states have witnessed an increase in construction employment during the last year, with those increases most uniform across the West, according to a new survey.
The Bureau of Labor Statistics says that 42 states registered increases of anywhere from under 1% to 10.2% between May of 2022 and May of 2023, with Arkansas leading the way.
The other top five states were either in the Plains region or the West, starting with Nebraska with a 7.2% gain, and followed by Oregon at 7.0%, and Idaho and Nevada at 6.3% each.
The bottom five states, or states actually seeing a loss of construction jobs, were scattered across the country, starting with Connecticut posting a 2.6% decline; and followed by South Dakota with a 1.6% decline; West Virginia, down by 1.3%; Alaska, off by 1.2%; and usually booming Colorado, uncharacteristically registering a decline of 1.0%.
Employment in other Western states was generally robust, with Arizona up by 1.5%, Texas, 2.7%, and New Mexico showing a strong 3.2% gain.
Overall, according to the BLS survey, the number of new jobs in the country was up by around 339,000. “Job gains occurred in professional and business services, government, healthcare, construction, transportation and warehousing, and social assistance,” said a narrative accompanying the survey.
In an analysis of the recent construction job numbers, Ken Simonson, chief economist with the Associated General Contractors of America, said that “contractors remain busy nationwide, with bulging orders for future work.”
But Simonson added a cautionary note: contractors continue to have trouble “filling job openings when the industry unemployment rate is only 3.5%.”
In a statement, Anirban Basu, chief economist with the Associated Builders and Contractors, remarked: “The construction industry unemployment rate is now below the economywide unemployment rate, and there are plenty of available, unfilled construction jobs.”
The Wall Street Journal said the new construction job gains highlighted a “persistent strength in a sector that is usually among the first to buckle under higher interest rates.”
By Garry Boulard
