This audio is automatically generated. Please let us know if you have any comments.
Dive brief:
- Construction job postings continued to recover in December, with 292,000 places not covered for which employers were actively hiring, according to a Thursday release from the Bureau of Labor Statistics.
- The industry had 8,000 more job openings since November, according to the BLS, and 87,000 more since the same period a year earlier. In total, 3.4% of all construction jobs were unfilled in the last month of 2025.
- However, economic and project uncertainty has continued to hold back construction hiring, experts say.
Diving knowledge:
Associated Builders and Contractors Chief Economist Anirban Basu highlighted the construction hiring rate recovered from historical lows this fall as job postings hit their highest level since July.
“This release paints a slightly more optimistic picture of the workforce dynamics in the construction industry,” Basu said in a statement.
The hiring rate was 4.2 percent in December, beating the job opening rate of 3.4 percent, said Macrina Wilkins, director of market information for the Associated General Contractors of America.
But there is no cause for celebration, experts warned.
“Despite this improvement, demand for construction workers remains weak, as has been the case for several quarters. Fewer construction workers were hired in 2024 and 2025 than in any two-year period since 2015-2016,” Basu said.
Wilkins noted that the labor market remained “cautious” as layoffs rose modestly from 1.7% to 2.1%.
“The data points to continued labor force stability along with a gradual improvement in hiring,” he said.
Meanwhile, ABC’s BLS analysis construction unemployment data found that the overall U.S. construction jobless rate declined 0.2% year-over-year to 5% in December. Most states had lower estimated construction unemployment rates than last year. Most also reported unemployment rates lower than their pre-pandemic levels.
“The construction industry continues to face weaker demand due to tariff headwinds and supply disruptions pushing up building material prices, rising insurance costs and increased immigration enforcement contributing to a shortage of skilled construction workers, which has increased upward pressure on wages,” said Bernard Markstein, president and chief economist at Markstein Advisors. Markstein Advisors performed the analysis for ABC.
At the same time, ABC predicts that construction will require 350,000 net new jobs workers to cover demand in 2026. Although this gap is considerable, it remains a narrowing of the valley between workers and the workforce reality of years past.
