Construction Jobs Are Increasing

Last week, the U.S. Bureau of Labor announced that the economy added 288,000 jobs and the unemployment rate dropped to 6.3%. For the uninitiated, this is good news.  More importantly for this readership, the construction sector is adding jobs at a very healthy pace.  Here is the annual change in construction jobs over the past 12+ years:

2002:  -85,000
2003:  127,000
2004:  290,000
2005:  416,000
2006:  152,000
2007:  -195,000 (the pain starts)
2008:  -789,000 (damn, this is beginning to hurt)
2009:  -1,047,000 (we were just given a standing eight count)
2010:  -192,000 (damn, this is one heck of a hangover…)
2011:  144,000 (so glad that episode is over)
2012:  114,000
2013:  156,000
Through April 2014: 124,000 (372,000 for all of 2014 on an annualized rate)

Here is the most recent data in graphical form showing a nice recovery:

Here's a graph of longer-term construction employment. You can tell that there was one heckuva run up from approximately 1995 to 2006. (Graph from the Calculated Risk Blog)

It is unlikely we'll see construction employment as high as it was in 2006. But the good news is that construction companies are hiring again.  This is good for college grads majoring in construction management, civil engineering and  architecture. Hiring at Sac State's CM program has been very robust and we may have our third year of 100% job placement for grads in a row.