US Construction Unemployment Rate Rises 0.8% Year-Over-Year in December

Associated Builders and Contractors (ABC), a national construction industry trade association, released on Monday its state-by-state analysis of the latest Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) jobs report. According to ABC’s analysis, not seasonally adjusted, the US construction unemployment rate was 5.2% in December, up 0.8% year-over-year.

ABC found that only six states had lower estimated construction unemployment rates over the same period and 44 states were higher. All but three states (Minnesota, New Jersey, and Rhode Island) had construction unemployment rates below 10%.

National payroll construction employment was 191,000 higher than December 2023 (not seasonally adjusted). Seasonally adjusted, payroll construction employment was 701,000, or 9.2%, above its pre-pandemic peak of 7.6 million.

Bernard Markstein, president and chief economist of Markstein Advisors, who conducted the analysis for ABC, said:

“High interest rates, rising labor costs, and uncertainty about future materials prices due to tariffs are acting as a drag on new construction plans. Nonetheless, construction employment continues to grow as older projects move forward and some new projects break ground. Much depends on the future course of Federal Reserve monetary policy, efforts by the new administration to spur economic activity and the threat of price increases due to tariffs.”