Two hundred and ninety-eight thousand construction job openings were registered in May, according to the Survey of Job Openings and Labor Turnover, recently released by the US Bureau of Labor Statistics. The figure is 32,000 more than April’s job openings and 76,000 more than the figure recorded in May 2025.
May’s construction job postings hit “a 10-month high,” Anirban Basu, chief economist at Associated Builders and Contractors, said in a statement. “Unfortunately, this increase likely reflects exceptional demand for certain occupations critical to data center construction, such as electricians, rather than increased labor demand across the industry.”
There were 295,000 hires in May, down 24,000 from the previous month and down 50,000 from May 2025. Total separations, which include layoffs, layoffs and layoffs, came in at 305,000, up 18,000 from April but down 49,000 year-over-year. While resignations fell by 28,000 between April and May, layoff activity picked up, increasing by 47,000 month over month.
“The construction hiring rate fell sharply in May and, at 3.5 percent, matched February’s all-time low,” Basu said. “The increase in layoff activity and the drop in the quit rate also suggest that construction labor demand weakened in May.”
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