Report: Construction job openings still on the rise

The construction industry had 396,000 job openings in March, according to an Associated Builders & Contractors (ABC) analysis of U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics data.

Industry job openings increased by 13,000 jobs from February to March and are up 60,000 from March 2021.

Construction workers quit their jobs at a faster rate than they were laid off or discharged in March, with the quits rate of 3.2 percent double the layoffs and discharges rate of 1.6 percent.

March represented the 13th consecutive month in which quits outpaced or equaled layoffs and discharges.

“The March JOLTS (Job Openings & Labor Turnover Survey) data reflect a labor market that continues to be strong and an economy that continues to have forward momentum,” says Anirban Basu, ABC’s chief economist. “Despite evidence of project postponements due to elevated costs of delivering construction services, including sky-high materials costs, demand for workers continues to rise.”

Basu adds that many contractors are operating at capacity and are expanding their capacity to make room for additional workers.

“The construction industry faces a severe skilled worker shortage of 650,000 in 2022, and it is likely that construction wages will continue to grow at above-average rates as contractors compete for talent,” Basu says. “That will drive the cost of delivering construction services even higher during the months ahead, a notion supported by the recent decline in contractor profit margin expectations, as indicated by ABC’s Construction Confidence Indicator.”