America’s labor market is coming off a boil, but one unexpected corner of the jobs market is white-hot: construction.
That’s not what you would expect, based on historical experience, at a time of sky-high interest rates and weak demand for commercial real estate.
The construction hiring boom points to one way in which the economy so far has very different trends than in past decades.
Demographic shifts, big federal investment in manufacturing and a shortage of housing supply have kept the sector humming, helping stabilize overall economic activity.
The demand for new construction workers is a result of a number of shifts, some long in the making (mutated immigration, retiring workers and housing shortages)
Hiring was among the strongest in the construction sector last month, the Labor Department said Friday — adding 17,000 jobs in December.
Construction firms added an average of 16,000 jobs each month last year — above the 11,000 added monthly before the pandemic in 2019.
There were nearly half a million unfilled construction jobs in November, a sign of hearty demand for workers that is close to the highest since records began in 2000.
The demand for new workers is a result of a number of shifts, some long in the making (mutated immigration, retiring workers and housing shortages) and some unique to this economic cycle. Those include generous federal funding that’s supported infrastructure and manufacturing investment.
“Historically, construction employment has been quite sensitive to interest rate changes,” but that hasn’t been the case in recent years, ADP chief economist Nela Richardson told Axios on a press call last week.
“Add on big structural changes — immigration, lack of inventory and demographics — and the interest rate component is a small driver compared to those structural ones,” Richardson added.
By the numbers:
There are over 767,992 construction workers currently employed in the United States.
6.2% of all construction workers are women, while 93.8% are men.
The average construction worker age is 38 years old.
The most common ethnicity of construction workers is White (52.9%), followed by Hispanic or Latino (27.7%), Black or African American (11.1%) and Unknown (4.0%).
In 2022, women earned 94% of what men earned.
2% of all construction workers are LGBT.
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