While the construction industry as a whole registered a decrease in jobs, the residential sector keeps posting gains.
By Christina Dock
The overall construction industry saw a decrease of 61,000 jobs in February, the second consecutive month of declines. Although there has been an ongoing industry turnaround, with strong growth over the past few months, February was tough due to difficult weather conditions throughout much of the country. In fact, of the 17 industry groups cited by the Bureau of Labor Statistics, Construction was the poorest performer for the month, with only the government (federal, state and local) showing more job losses. Overall, in the 12 months since February 2020, the industry has lost 308,000 jobs.
A closer examination of the construction job picture, however, reveals major differences by sub-group. Although the overall sector lost 61,000 jobs in February, these losses are from the subcategories of nonresidential building, heavy and civil engineering construction and specialty trade contractors. Jobs in residential buildings actually registered a modest gain of 5,300 jobs for the month, bringing the total to 3 million. In fact, with 10 consecutive months of gains, the massive number of residential construction jobs lost last March and April owing to COVID-19 have been completely made up, with the 300,000+ losses cited earlier coming from the non-residential sector.
The rate of unemployment for construction industry workers has steadily decreased since the peak of COVID-19 last April, with the outlook for the future remaining positive. In fact, the 10-year forecast from 2019 to 2029 is calling for annual industry employment growth of 5%, which compares favorably with most other occupations.
