According to an analysis of data from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics’ Job Openings and Labor Turnover Survey conducted by the Associated Builders and Contractors, the construction industry had 202,000 job openings on the last day of February.
A job vacancy is defined by JOLTS as any vacant position for which an employer is currently conducting recruitment efforts.
In February, the number of industry job openings decreased by 28,000, and they are down by 53,000 from the same period last year.
The ABC Chief Economist, Anirban Basu, stated that construction hiring experienced its lowest rate in history in February.
“At the same time, contractors continued to be hesitant to terminate employees, and employees were even more hesitant to depart.”
February 2026 was the month with the least construction labor force churn since the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) initiated this survey in December 2000, due to the combination of historically sluggish hiring and an unprecedentedly low number of separations.
Basu stated, “Of course, this data is relevant to February, when the Strait of Hormuz was open and the price of oil was below $100 per barrel.”
“According to ABC’s Construction Confidence Index, contractors are still optimistic about their staffing intentions; however, most recent data and developments indicate that hiring is unlikely to rebound in the near future.”
[Read more about this topic on abc.org]