Construction employment increased by 16,000 jobs in August, according to www.abc.org. During the past four months, the industry has added 658,000 jobs, recovering about 61% of the industrywide jobs lost since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic.
The construction unemployment rate fell from 8.9% in July to 7.6% in August—an increase of four percentage points compared with the same time last year but a decrease of 1.3 percentage points compared with July. The national unemployment rate for all industries fell from 10.2% in July to 8.4% in August as the U.S. economy added 1.4 million jobs.
Nonresidential construction employment lost 11,000 jobs on net in August, and there were job losses in two of the three nonresidential segments; the nonresidential building subsector increased by 10,200 jobs.
“In July, the pace of job creation slowed compared to May and June, in part due to a slowing of economic reopening as COVID-19 became more pervasive in the South and more recently in the Midwest,” said Associated Builders and Contractors Chief Economist Anirban Basu. “Accordingly, there were projections that the August jobs report could massively disappoint.
“But rather, today’s report indicates that America’s nascent economic recovery remains fully in place,” Basu continued. “The big news was that the nation’s rate of unemployment declined to 8.4%, even as more people reentered the job market, which was due in part to a cessation of a sizable federal supplement to state unemployment insurance benefits.”
Basu said there still are challenges ahead.
“Despite the ongoing economic momentum, nonresidential contractors should brace for a challenging year,” Basu said. “While the overall economy and the construction industry added jobs in August, nonresidential employment shrank due to tighter financing conditions, diminished cashflow among property owners, lingering uncertainty, elevated commercial vacancy and project postponements and cancellations. There is also the possibility of another downturn beginning late this year or in early 2021 as temperatures cool and viral spread accelerates. Of course, it is conceivable that outcomes will prove far more benign than expected if a vaccine becomes widely available and the federal government passes a meaningful infrastructure package.”
