Dive summary:

• Gilbane Building Co. crunched some numbers and found that between February and September of last year, construction employment grew by 169,000 jobs – but that is for the states that make up 50% of construction employment in the U.S. and doesn't say much about smaller states.
• Nonresidential construction for 2012 should be up 4.9% when all the numbers are in, Gilbane reckoned, and its “Construction Economics: Market Conditions in Construction”report says to expect the same in 2013.
• Construction starts are rising slowly, as is backlog, and contractors are beginning to think they can start to pass along materials-price increases that have been chewing away at margins on projects.

From the article:

Spending on public construction has declined 5% YOY and was expected to finish 2012 12% below the 2009 peak. ...