Dive Brief:

• Construction employment remained unchanged at 6,643,000 from May to June but was up 3.4% (217,000) year over year, according to an analysis of U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics data by the Associated General Contractors of America.
• The construction unemployment rate dipped to 4.6% month over month, the lowest rate since 2000.
• Wages grew 2.8% from June 2015 to $28.13, and weekly hours worked increased to 39.2 for the same period, indicating that construction employers are experiencing difficulty finding skilled workers.

Dive Insight:

Both nonresidential (3,700) and residential (4,700) specialty trade contractors saw an increase in new jobs, according to the Associated Builders and Contractors, but nonresidential builders (-1,300), residential builders (-2,400) and heavy/civil engineering contractors (-3,900) all lost positions.

The inability of the construction industry to add jobs for the third month in a row, in contrast to a general uptick in employment for the country overall (287,000 new jobs), is due in part to a drop in public construction spending, as indicated by the job loss in the heavy/civil engineering sector, according to ABC Chief Economist Anirban Basu. Also, a slight rise in oil prices, he said, could mean that some workers who recently left that industry could have returned.

In line with the AGC's predictions, the skilled worker shortage is now preventing industry expansion, according to AGC CEO Stephen Sandherr. "It's time for Congress to pass legislation that will help reinvigorate the pipeline for recruiting and preparing students for high-paying careers in construction," he said in a release. The AGC said the way to achieve this goal it through the reauthorization of a reformed Carl D. Perkins Act, which would create the necessary educational programs to beef up the future construction workforce.

At the end of last month, the National Association of Home Builders/Wells Fargo Housing Market Index survey also found that worker shortages were creating a burden for single-family-home builders. The number of construction firms reporting a shortage, when asked about nine major trades, increased from 21% to 56% since 2012, which amounts to an increase of 10% since 2014 and a rise of 4% from 2015.