The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics’ Job Opening and Labor Turnover Survey shows the construction industry registered 449,000 job openings in April, which is up 23,000 from March and 120,000 from April 2021, according to www.abc.org. The survey defines a job opening as any unfilled position for which an employer is actively recruiting.
For the 14th consecutive month, construction workers quit their jobs at a faster rate than they were laid off or discharged in April; the quit rate was 2.9%, and the layoff/discharge rate was 1.5%.
“The desperate search for skilled construction workers persists,” said Associated Builders and Contractors Chief Economist Anirban Basu. “The number of available, unfilled construction jobs continues to expand. Remarkably, this is occurring despite a lack of strong construction spending growth, which suggests that construction productivity is not expanding. What is expanding is compensation costs, as employers compete aggressively with one another to secure sufficient levels of human capital.
“Today’s report also suggests that wage pressures will continue to help stoke economywide inflation,” Basu continued. “That increases the chances that the Federal Reserve will continue to pursue a path of tightening monetary policy. Accordingly, contractors will face both rising delivery costs and cost of capital. Despite that, many contractors remain upbeat, according to ABC’s Construction Confidence Index, indicating that they are operating at capacity and expect to do so for the rest of the year.”
