Construction Job Openings Post Year-Over-Year Gains

A closer look at the construction sector portion of the Bureau of Labor Statistics’ (BLS) Job Openings and Labor Turnover (JOLTS) Summary for December, with further analysis provided by the National Association of Home Builders (NAHB), reveals that construction labor market remains constricted and the number of job openings continues to rise year-over-year.

The number of open construction jobs declined in December to 337,000 unfilled positions, or -4.3%. This is still significantly higher than the 267,000 openings record in December 2020. The highest measure in the history of the data series (going back to late 2000) was 445,000 in October 2021. The housing market remains underbuilt and requires additional labor, lots, and lumber and building materials to add inventory.

Hiring in the construction sector remained strong in December but slowed to a 4.3% growth rate. The post-virus peak rate of hiring occurred in May 2020 (10.3%) as a rebound took hold in home building and remodeling. It has trended higher since the Fall of 2020 asthe broader labor market has improved and construction hiring has increased.

Construction sector layoffs moved lower in December to a 1.7% rate. In April 2020, the layoff rate was 10.9%. Since that time, however, the sector layoff rate has been below 3% (with the exception of February 2021 due to weather effects). The rate trended lower in 2021 due to the skilled labor shortage.

While the number of job quits in the overall economy continued to grow in December, the number of job quits in the construction sector declined to 181,000 — down from the series high recorded in November 2021.