U.S. Construction Employment a Bright Spot in Many Major U.S. Cities

Article source: ConstructConnect

Table 1 sets out the best U.S. city labor markets according to two measurements, unemployment rates (with smallest being most desirable) and year-over-year jobs change (with fastest at the top).

At this present time, ‘fastest’ year-over-year jobs change means slowest decline. There isn’t a single city where there has been an increase in employment from year-previously levels.

Four cities, however, stand out (and are shaded green) for being among the Top 10 according to both criteria ‒ Salt Lake City, Indianapolis, Austin and Atlanta.

Another four cities comprise a second-rung ‘good’ grouping ‒ Kansas City, Birmingham, Jacksonville and Cincinnati.

While not shown in Table 1, three cities are currently experiencing double-digit unemployment rates: Los Angeles, 11.0%; New Orleans, 11.3%; and Las Vegas, 13.8%.

Furthermore, Memphis and New York, each with unemployment rates of 9.7%, have barely escaped 10%-or-higher unemployment rate ignominy.

New York and Las Vegas have also been hammered on the jobs creation (or, more accurately, ‘de-creation’ front), with the former recording a figure of -10.0% and the latter, -10.5%.

Construction Employment Can Take a Bow

Thankfully, construction employment, as a subset of ‘total’ employment, has provided some rays of light.

From Table 2, there are 22 cities with year-over-year pickups in construction jobs counts. (Remember that no city has achieved a ‘total’ jobs gain y/y.)

The leading cities for construction jobs improvement in November, 2020, were Kansas City, +6.8% y/y; Cleveland, +6.5%; Nashville, +5.9%; Baltimore, +5.4%; and Raleigh, +5.1%.

The five cities with the worst figures on construction employment y/y have been Houston, -9.3%; San Francisco, -9.6%; Philadelphia, -9.8%; Boston, -10.4%; and New Orleans, -11.2%.

The employment numbers (‘total’ and for construction specifically) for all 51 of America’s cities with populations of a million-plus each appear at the bottom of this article online.

Table 1

Table 2

Table 3

Table 4

Category: ConstructConnect

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