The hiring keeps coming where the megaprojects are. U.S. construction firms added 17,000 jobs in May, and almost all of it, 15,700 positions, came from the nonresidential side, according to AGC’s read of the latest federal data. Specialty trade contractors led with 11,400 new hires, followed by heavy and civil engineering at 2,600 and nonresidential building at 1,700.
A two-speed labor market
Nonresidential construction employment is now up 101,500 jobs, or 2.1%, over the past year. That growth is concentrated, not broad. AGC chief economist Ken Simonson tied it directly to data centers and the power and manufacturing work that surrounds them, the projects that need highly paid, skilled crews and can’t wait for them. While much of the wider economy posted only modest job gains in May, contractors kept adding workers and raising pay.
Pay is the clearest tell. Average hourly earnings for production and nonsupervisory construction workers rose 5.0% year over year, against 3.6% for the total private sector. When a trade pays a 1.4-point premium over the rest of the economy and still can’t fill the bench, that’s a labor shortage expressing itself in wages.
The headwinds nobody’s ignoring
The optimism comes with an asterisk. Economists flag political and economic risks that could slow the run: tighter immigration enforcement thinning available crews, tariff-driven cost pressure on bids, and softening design demand that shows up in architecture billings. Residential added only a sliver in May, consistent with a housing market that’s been stuck for months.
For now, the data center boom is doing the heavy lifting, and it’s pulling skilled labor toward power, semiconductors, and AI campuses faster than the trades can train replacements. That imbalance is good for wages and hard on schedules. It’s also the defining feature of the 2026 jobsite.