Construction employment saw a slight increase in July, rising by 2,000 jobs, while construction spending declined by 0.4 percent in June compared to May. This data comes from an analysis of two government reports released by the Associated General Contractors of America.
Ken Simonson, chief economist of the Associated General Contractors of America, commented on the recent trends: “Employment growth in construction has slowed over the past year as uncertainty about tariffs and labor availability have caused owners to delay, stretch out, shrink, and cancel projects. As more structures that broke ground in past years reach completion, it is likely that industry employment growth will taper off even more.”
Total construction employment reached 8,310,000 in July on a seasonally adjusted basis. Employment increased by 96,000 jobs or 1.2 percent from July 2024 to last month. However, this was less than half the gain seen during the previous year when jobs rose by 200,000 or 3.1 percent.
Nonresidential construction firms—including nonresidential building and specialty trade contractors as well as heavy and civil engineering businesses—added 6,400 jobs from June to July and gained 114,400 positions (2.4 percent) over the last year. These gains offset losses among homebuilders and residential specialty trade contractors who lost 4,400 jobs for the month and were down by 18,200 (-0.5 percent) over twelve months.
Construction spending reached $2.14 trillion at a seasonally adjusted annual rate in June. This figure represents a decline of 0.4 percent from May and is also down by 2.9 percent compared with June of last year.
The decrease was primarily due to reductions in private residential and nonresidential projects which offset a small rise in public sector work. Private residential spending dropped by 0.7 percent for the month and fell by 6.2 percent over twelve months; private nonresidential spending decreased by 0.3 percent for the month and declined by 4 percent year-over-year; public construction outlays increased slightly—by 0.1 percent from May to June—and rose by 5.2 percent compared with last year.
Officials from the association called on the Trump administration to continue negotiating trade agreements to reduce tariff uncertainty and urged that immigration enforcement focus on undocumented individuals involved in other criminal activity so as not to disrupt ongoing construction or economic development efforts.
Jeffrey D. Shoaf, chief executive officer of the association said: “The more uncertainty there is, the less likely developers are going to invest in significant new construction projects,” adding: “The more this administration can do to provide economic certainty, the more likely demand for construction will rebound.”
View the employment tables here.