Wages for U.S. construction workers have significantly increased since the beginning of 2017, outpacing wage growth for all private sector U.S. workers during the same period, according to www.agc.org.
Wages for all private sector workers have increased steadily—between 2.6 percent and 2.9 percent year-over-year—since the beginning of 2017, according to Bureau of Labor Statistics data. At the beginning of 2017, construction worker wages were increasing about 2.5 percent per year, but construction worker wages now are increasing 3.8 percent per year. Residential construction worker wages have increased the most since the beginning of 2017 from about 2.4 percent to 5 percent per year.
The recent increase in construction wages reflects the ongoing labor shortage within the industry though average wages in the residential construction industry historically have been higher than average wages of private sector U.S. workers. In early 2006, residential construction wages were on average 16 percent higher than average private sector wages. During the Great Recession, construction activity lessened and residential construction wages decreased significantly until they were nearly equal to average private sector wages by the end of 2011. As the demand for residential construction increased post-recession, residential construction wages recovered, and by March 2018, the average residential construction wage was 13.7 percent higher than the average private sector wage.
