While the potential for trillions of dollars of new infrastructure spending looms on the horizon, America’s construction industry is struggling to even keep pace with current demand for new homes, businesses, roads, and bridges. A shortage of supplies and employees has created ongoing challenges for construction firms and their customers.
“The home building industry faces a major shortage of skilled workers. This persistent challenge endangers the affordability and availability of housing and hinders a robust economic recovery,” said Ed Brady, president and CEO of the Home Builders Institute (HBI), which recently released a report detailing the extent of the worker shortage. At the start of 2021, 60% of builders were experiencing a labor shortage, and the industry was in need of more than 300,000 additional workers, according to HBI. Even more recently, the trade association Associated Builders and Contractors estimated 430,000 additional workers would need to be hired in 2021.
The construction labor shortage is most severe for framing crews and carpenters, where about 25% of firms reported a serious shortage and nearly another 50% reported moderate labor shortages, the HBI report noted. Other trades facing significant labor shortages included bricklayers, masons, concrete workers, painters, and plumbers.
Despite short- and long-term labor shortages at the national level, states where population growth has been hottest are also where construction hiring has boomed in recent years. From 2015 to 2020, the Bureau of Labor Statistics recorded about 35% growth in construction employment in Idaho and Nevada, as well as about 30% growth in Florida, Arizona, Oregon, and North Carolina. In contrast, states in the Mid-Atlantic and Midwest regions have seen construction jobs stagnate or even decline over the past five years.
To find which metropolitan areas have added the most construction jobs over the same time period, researchers at Construction Coverage analyzed BLS data between 2015 and 2020, calculated the percentage change in construction employment, and ranked all metros of 100,000 residents or more based on that growth.
Here are the large metropolitan areas that added the most construction jobs over the past five years.
| Metro | Rank | Percentage change in construction employment (2015–2020) | Percentage change in total employment (2015–2020) | Total change in construction employment (2015–2020) | Total construction employment (2020) | Median annual wage for construction workers (2020)
|
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Sacramento–Roseville–Arden- |
1 | 48.8% | 10.7% | 17,510 | 53,370 | $55,250 |
| Charlotte-Concord-Gastonia, NC-SC | 2 | 37.9% | 8.7% | 15,270 | 55,580 | $41,270 |
| Las Vegas-Henderson-Paradise, NV | 3 | 34.1% | No significant change | 13,320 | 52,340 | $49,140 |
| Phoenix-Mesa-Scottsdale, AZ | 4 | 33.3% | 12.4% | 25,900 | 103,640 | $47,030 |
| Tampa-St. Petersburg-Clearwater, FL | 5 | 32.2% | 7.2% | 14,570 | 59,860 | $38,870 |
| Nashville-Davidson– |
6 | 31.3% | 9.3% | 8,210 | 34,470 | $41,810 |
| Portland-Vancouver-Hillsboro, OR-WA | 7 | 30.9% | 4.9% | 13,360 | 56,580 | $59,390 |
| Jacksonville, FL | 8 | 29.8% | 9.8% | 7,800 | 33,970 | $38,450 |
| Riverside-San Bernardino-Ontario, CA | 9 | 29.6% | 13.7% | 19,100 | 83,650 | $52,580 |
| Miami-Fort Lauderdale-West Palm Beach, FL | 10 | 28.5% | 3.0% | 23,080 | 103,950 | $41,440 |
| Salt Lake City, UT | 11 | 27.2% | 10.4% | 8,370 | 39,130 | $48,060 |
| Orlando-Kissimmee-Sanford, FL | 12 | 25.5% | 6.6% | 11,850 | 58,230 | $39,670 |
| Grand Rapids-Wyoming, MI | 13 | 24.2% | No significant change | 3,770 | 19,320 | $46,190 |
| Raleigh, NC | 14 | 22.1% | 10.1% | 5,100 | 28,180 | $43,340 |
| Indianapolis-Carmel-Anderson, IN | 15 | 20.1% | 2.7% | 6,950 | 41,580 | $48,360 |
| United States | – | 8.4% | 0.9% | 460,010 | 5,937,830 | $48,610 |
For more information, a detailed methodology, and complete results, you can find the original report on Construction Coverage’s website: https://constructioncoverage.