The US construction industry had 423,000 job openings on the last day of October, according to an Associated Builders and Contractors (ABC) analysis of data from the US Bureau of Labor Statistics’ Job Openings and Labor Turnover Survey.
JOLTS defines a job opening as any unfilled position an employer actively recruits for. Industry job openings were down 4,000 on the previous month in October but increased by 25,000 compared to industry job openings in October 2022.
“The number of economywide job openings fell to 8.7 million in October, the lowest total since March 2021,” said ABC Chief Economist Anirban Basu. “This is a strong indication that the demand for labour is slowing, although the supply of workers is still far too low to meet that demand. The number of open, unfilled jobs across the economy still exceeds the pre-pandemic level by more than 1.7 million.
“While labour market tightness is easing across all economic segments, worker scarcity remains a pressing issue for the construction industry,” said Basu. “On the last day of October, 5% of construction positions were unfilled, which is well above the 3.9% industry job opening rate observed in February 2020. With nearly half of contractors intending to increase their staffing levels over the next six months, according to ABC’s Construction Confidence Index, the lack of available workers will remain a headwind for the construction industry over the next several quarters.”
