The non-seasonally adjusted construction unemployment rate increased nationally year-over-year (YOY), according to an analysis of U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) data by the Associated Builders and Contractors (ABC). Despite the increase, the industry unemployment rate remained below 10% in all 50 states for the fourth consecutive month.
The construction industry employed 177,000 more workers nationally compared to August 2018, even as the August 2019 national non-seasonally adjusted construction unemployment rate increased from 3.4% to 3.6% over the same period, according to BLS numbers.
Although the growth in employment is a positive for the industry, there has been a troubling trend of declining growth in construction employment for close to a year now. August’s increase in year-over-year employment is the smallest increase since December 2016—158,000—which was an anomaly after almost four years of robust increases in construction employment. The slowdown in employment growth may be due to a combination of the shortage of skilled workers and the recent slowdown in construction activity (as of August, year-to-date construction spending was down 2.3% from the same period last year).
The national non-seasonally adjusted construction unemployment rate fell 0.2% from July to August. There is no set historical pattern to the change in the rate from July. Since the data series began in 2000, there were nine decreases and eight increases, and twice the rate was unchanged. Among the states, 29 had lower estimated construction unemployment rates from July; 17 were higher and four were unchanged.
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