Texas, California, Florida, and Arizona continue to lead the way in new construction jobs during the last year, says a new report just released by the Washington-based Associated General Contractors.
Between August of 2018 and August of this year, Texas saw the addition of roughly 43,900 jobs, followed by California at 34,300, Florida at 20,900 and Arizona with 15,400 new construction jobs.
Those numbers are all the more remarkable, given the population rankings of the states. While California, Texas, and Florida are currently the nation’s top three populous states, Arizona is ranked at 14th.
Much of the new construction activity in the Grand Canyon State has been driven by large high-tech data center projects.
In terms of the percentage increase in construction employment in the last year, six of the ten top states were located in the West.
At the same time, Louisiana, Ohio, Maryland, Vermont, and Connecticut all shed construction jobs between August of last year and August of this year.
Construction employment in Colorado posted a modest gain of 300 new jobs, from a total of 174,100 in August 2018 to 174,400 this August.
In New Mexico the numbers increased from 46,800 to 51,100.
In a statement, Ken Simonson, chief economist with the Associated General Contractors, speculated that “even more states probably would have posted gains in construction employment if firms could find enough people to hire.”
By Garry Boulard
