AGC: Construction Jobs Rise but Many Openings Remain

“Demand for construction projects remains strong nationwide and most metros have continued to add construction jobs in the past year,” said AGC’s chief economist Ken Simonson. “But there were 378,000 unfilled job openings in construction at the end of July, which suggests that even more markets would have posted year-over-year employment increases if there were enough qualified workers to fill the openings.”

The Dallas-Plano-Irving area added the most jobs with 18,100, followed by New York City with 13,400. The least amount of jobs added were in Corvallis, Ore., at just 200.

Decreases were seen, with the largest number lost in the Miami-Miami Beach-Kendall, Fla., area, which lost 4,100 jobs.

“We want to understand why firms are having trouble finding qualified workers and the consequences of those shortages,” said the association’s CEO Stephen E. Sandherr.

New workforce data will be released on Sept. 6 as part of the AGC’s and Autodesk’s annual Construction Workforce Survey. Sandherr said the information is “designed to help policy makers and the industry identify steps they can take to prepare, recruit and retain more qualified workers.”