Construction employment rose by 11,000 in September to 8,364,000, and one corner of the industry supplied the whole gain while residential subcontractors cut 7,900 jobs. The Bureau of Labor Statistics report released Oct. 2 also trimmed August’s construction gain from 22,000 to 16,000, which leaves the sector adding about what it has averaged all year and no more.
BLS’s own description of the month: employment “changed little.” Over the prior 12 months the industry averaged 10,000 jobs a month.
Where construction employment grew and where it didn’t
The September jobs report splits the sector five ways in its industry table, and the five didn’t move together:
- Nonresidential specialty trade contractors: up 12,300 to 2,939,600
- Residential specialty trade contractors: down 7,900 to 2,340,300
- Residential building: up 3,000 to 922,700
- Heavy and civil engineering: up 2,600 to 1,210,800
- Nonresidential building: up 1,200 to 950,700
Stretch the window to a year and the split gets wider. Total construction payrolls are up 109,000, or 1.3%, since September 2025. The three nonresidential segments account for a gain of 142,000. The two residential segments are down 32,800 combined, and residential subs alone are off 28,800.
Subs on commercial, industrial and civil jobs are hiring. Subs working for homebuilders aren’t. It’s the same divide that showed up in August’s state-level numbers.
Construction wages rose 4.2%, but the workweek got shorter
Average hourly earnings for all construction employees reached $41.69, up 5 cents from August and 4.2% from a year earlier. The private-sector average was $37.81, up 3.0%. Production and nonsupervisory workers in construction, the closest BLS proxy for craft labor, averaged $39.20. That’s 4 cents lower than August and 4.3% higher than a year ago.
Hours went the other way. The average construction workweek slipped to 39.2 hours from 39.4, which pulled average weekly earnings down to $1,634.25 from $1,640.62. One month of shorter hours isn’t a trend. It is the first line to check in the October report.
The construction unemployment rate and the revisions
The industry’s unemployment rate was 3.5% in September, down from 3.8% a year earlier, with 359,000 jobless construction workers compared with 404,000. That figure isn’t seasonally adjusted, so don’t read it against the 3.1% reported for August as a deterioration. September against September is the only fair comparison.
The wider report was weak. Total nonfarm payrolls rose 29,000 and the national unemployment rate held at 4.2%. Revisions took a combined 60,000 jobs out of July and August, and July now shows a loss of 10,000. Construction’s 11,000 is more than a third of the national gain, which says more about the national number than about construction.
Put it next to this week’s JOLTS data, which showed construction layoffs at a record-low 99,000 in August and openings down 48,000. Contractors aren’t letting people go, and they aren’t adding many either.
The September figures are preliminary and will be revised twice. August just lost 6,000 jobs on its first pass.