Construction unemployment hits lowest May level in six years

The national construction industry’s unemployment rate was 8.6 percent in May, that month’s lowest level since 2008, according to a report from the Associated General Contractors of America based on data from the U.S. Census Bureau.

Construction employers across the country added 6,000 workers in May, but AGC officials are cautious despite the diminishing unemployment rate.

“Even with five straight months of construction employment gains, the industry remains vulnerable to sudden shifts in demand,” Ken Simonson, the AGC’s chief economist, said in the release. “Should Washington allow federal highway funding to come to a halt as predicted later this summer, the sudden loss of billions of dollars-worth of demand would cost many construction workers, as well as workers from other segments of the economy, their jobs.”

Construction employment totaled 6.004 million in May, the highest total since June 2009 and an increase of 188,000 employees, or 3.2 percent, from May 2013, Simonson said. Residential contractors added 3,300 jobs in May and 105,600 over 12 months, the AGC report said. Nonresidential construction firms added 2,700 employees since April and 82,000 since May 2013.

The unemployment rate for workers actively looking for jobs and last employed in construction declined from 10.8 percent a year earlier to 8.6 percent in May—the lowest May rate since 2008. Simonson said that the unemployment rate for construction workers had fallen by more than half since May 2010, when it reached 20.1 percent. During that time, the number of unemployed workers who last worked in construction declined by over one million, but industry employment increased by only 480,000.