Construction Employment Declines

In the span of a year, between May of 2011 until May of 2012, many different states across the nation deal with a loss of construction employment. In fact, within the past month, at least 27 of the states saw a decline in the employment numbers for those working in the construction sector. The information on the decline in construction employment came from the Associated General Contractors of America of Labor Department and the data that they came up with after performing a study. It is believed that the weakening of the construction sector is due to the lack of investments being made for different construction projects. When the funding is not there, the projects cannot happen and construction workers end up without work.

Ken Simonson, known for being the chief economist for the association, says while the public sectors declines on its demand for construction and when funding is not available, employment numbers in the construction sector will continue to decline. At this point, Simonson says, there is not a major demand for construction and because of that, the sector is suffering and employment numbers are dwindling, not improving. Simonson also pointed out that there were only a total of 19 states, along with the District of Columbia, that managed to increase the amount of construction jobs that were available within the span of one year, from May 2011 until May of 2012. He also says that in the state of Kansas, the construction employment seemed to be lacking. Out of all the states that did add construction jobs, Montana had the best overall increase, with a total of 15.2 percent new construction jobs being made available throughout the year. In second place, North Dakota, with a total of 13.7 percent construction jobs made available. Some of the other states that saw increases include Texas, Arizona, California, Indiana and Nebraska.

In the meantime, there were several states that lost a number of construction jobs within the span of one year. Of those states, Alaska had it the worse, losing roughly 20.4 percent of the construction jobs in the state. Wisconsin fell directly behind Alaska, with a total of 10 percent construction jobs lost for the entire state. There were other states that also dealt with a loss of construction jobs, which includes Mississippi, Florida, Illinois and New York.

With such discouraging results, officials are sending out warnings, claiming that employment in the construction sector is not going to get better and will only continue to decline if Congress does not start allowing the funding of different construction projects. When they cut back on the amount of money invested in these projects, fewer jobs will be available within the sector, leading to hire unemployment rates within the construction sector.