Construction loses 3,000 jobs in October as housing sheds workers and data centers keep hiring

Every nonresidential category grew, ABC said. Specialty trade contractors added 7,900 jobs, building contractors 2,900 and heavy and civil engineering firms 2,500. Subtracting those gains from the net loss puts residential cuts at about 16,300. Bureau of Labor Statistics table data cited by the ABC Carolinas chapter show residential specialty trade contractors alone lost 15,200 positions, while total nonfarm payrolls rose by 165,000.

Over 12 months the industry is still up 124,000 jobs, or 1.5%. ABC chief economist Anirban Basu credited the data center boom for nonresidential hiring and said that segment has expanded at better than double the pace of the overall economy over the past year.

The labor market for builders stayed tight. Construction unemployment was 3.6%, against 4.1% for all industries; Basu said that ties 2018 for the lowest October rate this century. Average hourly earnings in construction rose at the fastest monthly pace in more than three years and are up 4.7% from a year earlier, compared with 3.1% across all industries.

Nonresidential hiring looks set to continue. In ABC's Construction Confidence Index, nearly 50% of contractors expect to add staff over the next six months, and fewer than 12% expect to cut. The ABC Carolinas analysis said residential specialty trades have lost about 32,800 jobs over the past year, while nonresidential specialty contractors added about 84,700.