Construction Labor Shortage Tracker 2026: Openings, Hires, Quits and Unemployment

This month in brief

• Construction job openings were 251,000 in August 2026 (2.9% openings rate), 38,000 more than in August 2025 and 48,000 fewer than in July 2026 (BLS JOLTS, preliminary).
• The 2.9% openings rate is above the 2001 to 2019 average of 2.16% but far below the March 2022 peak of 5.6%.
• There were 0.76 openings per unemployed construction worker in August 2026, up from 0.57 a year earlier. The January to August 2026 average of 0.51 is level with 2025 (0.50).
• Construction workers quit less often than workers in other industries: 1.68% a month vs 1.95% in January to August 2026, the 7th straight year below the all-industry rate.
• Layoffs and discharges fell to 99,000 in August 2026, the lowest of 309 monthly readings since December 2000.
• Construction average hourly earnings rose 4.2% in the year to September 2026, to $41.69, vs 3.0% for all private employees.
• BLS projects 587,000 openings a year in construction and extraction occupations from 2025 to 2035; 93.4% of them replace workers who leave rather than add new jobs.

Construction labor shortage tracker: the August 2026 reading

Construction job openings eased in August 2026 after three months between 291,000 and 299,000, but they stayed above the year-earlier level. Hires slowed, quits held steady and layoffs fell to the lowest level in the JOLTS record.

U.S. construction employers reported 251,000 job openings on the last business day of August 2026, according to the BLS Job Openings and Labor Turnover Survey (JOLTS) release of September 29, 2026. That is 48,000 fewer than in July 2026 and 38,000 more than in August 2025, a 17.8% rise over 12 months. The construction job openings rate was 2.9% in August 2026, down from 3.5% in July 2026 and up from 2.5% in August 2025. August figures are preliminary and will be revised on November 3, 2026.

Construction hires were 308,000 in August 2026, a 3.7% hires rate, and 28,000 fewer than in August 2025. Construction quits were 152,000 (1.8%), against 150,000 a year earlier. Construction layoffs and discharges fell to 99,000 (1.2%), the lowest of 309 monthly readings since the series began in December 2000. BLS reported that openings, hires and layoffs were little changed in all industries in August 2026, so these monthly moves sit within sampling error.

Job opening (JOLTS): A position counts as open only if it exists, the work could start within 30 days and the employer is actively recruiting from outside the establishment. Positions to be filled by outside contractors, temporary help agencies or consultants are excluded (JOLTS Data Definitions). The job openings rate divides openings by the sum of employment and openings (JOLTS Technical Note). Because construction relies heavily on subcontracting, JOLTS counts only the openings on each firm's own payroll.

Across all industries there were 7.1 million job openings in August 2026, a 4.3% rate, and BLS counted 1.0 unemployed person per job opening (JOLTS August 2026). The construction openings rate of 2.9% was below the all-industry 4.3% in August 2026.

Construction job openings and hires since 2001

Construction openings rose from a low of 24,000 in April 2009 to a peak of 457,000 in March 2022, then fell back. The August 2026 openings rate of 2.9% is still above the 2001 to 2019 average of 2.16%.

The JOLTS construction series starts in December 2000. From 2001 to 2008 construction employers made between 2.28 and 4.10 hires for every opening they reported in a given year, a pattern consistent with short, project-based jobs. In 2022 and 2023 hires averaged fewer than one per opening (0.92 and 0.95), the only years in the series when that happened. That was the tightest stretch on record by this measure.

From January to August 2026 construction openings averaged 259,000 a month and hires 318,000, compared with 240,000 openings and 332,000 hires in 2025. Openings are higher than in 2025 and hires are lower, so the hires-per-opening ratio fell from 1.39 in 2025 to 1.23 in 2026 so far. By that measure, openings are taking somewhat longer to fill than a year ago, but far less long than in 2022.

Openings per unemployed construction worker

There were 0.76 construction job openings for every unemployed construction worker in August 2026, up from 0.57 a year earlier. The 2026 average so far, 0.51, is level with 2025 (0.50) and below 2019 (0.73) and 2022 (0.86).

This gauge divides construction job openings from JOLTS by the number of unemployed people whose last job was in construction, from the Current Population Survey. Both inputs are not seasonally adjusted, so the ratio swings with the building season: it fell to 0.29 in February 2026 and rose to 0.78 in July 2026. Annual averages remove most of that swing.

The construction ratio has been lower than the all-industry ratio in every year since 2001. In 2022, the tightest year, there were 0.86 construction openings per unemployed construction worker against 1.86 openings per unemployed person in the whole economy. In January to August 2026 the figures were 0.51 and 0.98. The construction unemployment rate is higher and more seasonal than the all-worker rate: 4.6% vs 4.3% in 2025, and 7.1% in January 2026 against 3.1% in August 2026 for construction alone. That keeps the denominator of the gauge large, especially in winter.

Hiring pressure: quits, hires per opening, layoffs and wages

Construction workers are quitting less often than workers in other industries, employers are laying off fewer people than at any time since 2000, and construction pay is rising faster than private-sector pay.

The construction quits rate averaged 1.68% a month from January to August 2026, against 1.95% across all industries, a gap of -0.27 percentage points. From 2001 to 2008 construction quit rates ran above the all-industry rate every year, by as much as 0.59 points in 2005. Since 2020 construction has been below the all-industry rate for 7 consecutive years. The construction average from 2001 to 2019 was 2.00%.

Quits (JOLTS): Employees who left their jobs voluntarily. Retirements and transfers to other locations of the same firm are counted as other separations, not quits (JOLTS Data Definitions). A low quits rate means fewer workers are leaving one employer for another.

Low quits and record-low layoffs together suggest that construction employers are holding on to the workers they have and that those workers are not leaving in large numbers. Layoffs and discharges of 99,000 in August 2026 were 45.6% below August 2025. On-site factors that influence retention are covered in the CB&C construction jobsite culture report.

Payroll employment kept growing. The September 2026 Employment Situation put construction employment at 8,364,000, up 11,000 in the month and 109,000 (1.3%) from September 2025. BLS noted that construction added an average of 10,000 jobs a month over the prior 12 months and that nonresidential specialty trade contractors continued to trend up (+12,000 in September 2026). For state counts of firms and workers, see commercial builders by state.

Average hourly earnings of all construction employees were $41.69 in September 2026, up 4.2% from $40.01 a year earlier (BLS Table B-3). Earnings for all private employees rose 3.0% to $37.81, so construction pay was 10.3% above the private-sector average. In August 2026 construction earnings were up 4.2% on the year while consumer prices rose 3.4% (CPI, August 2026), a real gain of about 0.7%. Metro-level pay is covered in construction pay by metro.

The construction unemployment rate (not seasonally adjusted) was 3.5% in September 2026, down from 3.8% in September 2025, and 359,000 construction workers were unemployed. The 2025 annual average was 4.6%, against 4.3% for all workers (CPS; the 2025 averages exclude October, when the survey was not conducted).

Aging workforce and the training pipeline

Construction workers are not older than the U.S. workforce on median age, but the 65-and-over group grew 75.9% from 2015 to 2025. BLS projects that 93.4% of openings in construction occupations through 2035 will replace workers who leave.

The median age of employed people in construction was 42.2 in 2025, against 42.1 for all industries, according to CPS Table 18b. It was 42.7 in 2015 and 42.9 in 2020. Workers aged 55 and over made up 22.2% of construction employment in 2025, up from 20.5% in 2015 but below the 23.2% share across all industries. The number of construction workers aged 65 and over rose from 399,000 to 702,000 over the decade, from 4.0% to 5.8% of the workforce. Workers under 25 rose from 8.8% to 10.4% of construction employment, still below the 12.2% share across all industries.

The BLS Employment Projections for 2025 to 2035 expect about 587,000 openings a year in construction and extraction occupations. Of these, 213,300 come from workers leaving the labor force, for example to retire, and 335,100 from workers moving to other occupations, for 548,400 replacement openings. Employment growth adds 38.6 thousand a year. Annual openings equal 7.8% of the occupations' 2025 employment of 7,492,900, below the 10.3% rate for all occupations. BLS projects construction industry employment to rise 5.0%, from 8,266,700 in 2025 to 8,677,400 in 2035 (EP Table 2.1).

Registered apprenticeship is one measurable pipeline. The Department of Labor reports 480,399 apprentices served in the construction industry in 2025, a 28% increase over five years (Apprenticeship.gov). These are people enrolled at some point in the year, not completions, and the page does not give construction's share of all apprentices. For the gender mix of the pipeline, see women in construction.

Longer-run context: a Harvard Joint Center for Housing Studies tabulation of Census data counted 6.2 million people in construction trade occupations in 2022, 11 percent fewer than in 2007. That figure predates 2023 and uses a different survey from the CPS figures above.

When this tracker updates next

This tracker is refreshed after each JOLTS and Employment Situation release. The next two of each are scheduled for November and December 2026.

• JOLTS, September 2026 data: Tuesday, November 3, 2026, 10:00 a.m. ET (BLS JOLTS schedule).
• Employment Situation, October 2026 data: Friday, November 6, 2026, 8:30 a.m. ET (BLS Employment Situation schedule).
• JOLTS, October 2026 data: Tuesday, December 1, 2026, 10:00 a.m. ET.
• Employment Situation, November 2026 data: Friday, December 4, 2026, 8:30 a.m. ET.

Each JOLTS release revises the prior month, and each Employment Situation revises the prior two months. Annual benchmark revisions to CES (each February) and JOLTS can change the historical series. The CB&C ratios in this report are recomputed from the full revised series at every update.

Momentum and share analysis

Download the calculations (CSV)

Findings to track

1. U.S. construction job openings were 251,000 on the last business day of August 2026, a 2.9% openings rate (BLS JOLTS, seasonally adjusted, preliminary).^[1]
2. Construction openings rose 17.8% from 213,000 in August 2025 to 251,000 in August 2026.^[1][2]
3. August 2026 construction openings were 45.1% below the series peak of 457,000 in March 2022.^[2]
4. The construction openings rate of 2.9% in August 2026 compares with an average of 2.16% from 2001 to 2019 (CB&C calculation from 228 monthly readings).^[2]
5. Construction hires were 308,000 in August 2026, down 8.3% from 336,000 in August 2025.^[1][2]
6. Construction layoffs and discharges were 99,000 in August 2026, the lowest of 309 monthly readings since December 2000, and 45.6% below August 2025.^[1][2]
7. In August 2026 there were 0.76 construction job openings per unemployed construction worker (234,000 openings and 309,000 unemployed, not seasonally adjusted), vs 0.96 across all industries.^[2][8]
8. Openings per unemployed construction worker averaged 0.51 in January to August 2026, 0.50 in 2025, 0.86 in 2022 and 0.73 in 2019.^[2][8]
9. The construction quits rate averaged 1.68% from January to August 2026 vs 1.95% for all industries; construction has been below the all-industry rate every year since 2020.^[2]
10. Construction employers made 1.23 hires per job opening in August 2026, vs 0.73 across all industries.^[2]
11. Construction payroll employment was 8,364,000 in September 2026, up 109,000 (1.3%) from September 2025; nonresidential specialty trade contractors added 84,700 (3.0%).^[5][6]
12. Average hourly earnings of construction employees were $41.69 in September 2026, up 4.2% in a year, vs 3.0% for all private employees.^[5][7]
13. The median age of employed construction workers was 42.2 in 2025, vs 42.1 for all industries and 42.7 for construction in 2015.^[10][11]
14. Construction workers aged 65 and over rose from 399,000 in 2015 to 702,000 in 2025, a 75.9% increase.^[10][11]
15. BLS projects 587,000 openings a year in construction and extraction occupations from 2025 to 2035; 548,400 of them (93.4%) replace workers who retire or change occupation.^[13][16]

Frequently asked questions

Methodology

Source selection: the tracker uses U.S. government statistics as primary data: BLS JOLTS for openings, hires, quits and layoffs; BLS Current Employment Statistics for payroll employment and hourly earnings; the Current Population Survey for unemployment and age; and BLS Employment Projections 2025 to 2035 for future openings. Series were downloaded from the BLS flat-file server (download.bls.gov) on 2026-10-05 and cross-checked against the published release tables. Association figures from ABC, AGC and NCCER are reported as headline numbers only, labelled as model or survey estimates, with their methods.

Inclusion and exclusion: construction means NAICS sector 23 in JOLTS and CES, and the construction industry of last job in the CPS. Commercial and residential construction cannot be separated in JOLTS. Claims we could not open or verify, including staffing-firm statistics and figures repeated on secondary pages, were excluded and are listed in the excluded claims file.

Latest releases: JOLTS for August 2026 (released 2026-09-29), the Employment Situation for September 2026 (released 2026-10-02), CPS annual averages for 2025, Employment Projections 2025 to 2035 (released 2026-08-27, replacing 2024 to 2034) and CPI for August 2026 (released 2026-09-11). The most recent month in each series is preliminary.

Conflicting numbers: earlier vintages of JOLTS repeated on other sites (for example June 2026 construction openings of 305,000 on a staffing-firm page) have since been revised; this report uses the current revised series (298,000 for June 2026). ABC's estimate of workers needed and BLS's projected openings measure different things and are shown side by side, not reconciled.

Derived metrics: openings per unemployed construction worker divides not seasonally adjusted JOLTS construction openings by not seasonally adjusted CPS unemployed construction workers (series LNU03032231); annual figures are ratios of annual means over the months both series exist. Quits gaps and hires per opening use seasonally adjusted JOLTS series; annual values are simple means of monthly values. Every formula and input row is listed in derived_metrics.csv and reproduced by the scripts in the scripts folder.

Limitations: JOLTS construction estimates rest on a national sample of about 21,000 establishments across all industries and have wide confidence intervals; month-to-month changes are often not statistically significant. JOLTS excludes positions filled by subcontractors, so openings understate demand for work done through subcontracting chains. October 2025 CPS data were not collected because of the federal government shutdown, so 2025 CPS averages cover 11 months. National figures do not show shortages in specific trades or metro areas. This report is not investment, legal or employment advice.

Last updated 2026-10-05.

This report presents published data with its limitations. It is not legal, financial or investment advice.

Sources, ranked by quality

Tier 1: primary and official sources (20)

• [1] U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. Job Openings and Labor Turnover Summary, August 2026 (USDL-26-1547). August 2026 (released 2026-09-29). Accessed 2026-10-05.
• [2] U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. JOLTS database, flat files (jt.data.2 to jt.data.8). December 2000 to August 2026. Accessed 2026-10-05.
• [3] U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. Schedule of Releases for the Job Openings and Labor Turnover Survey. 2025 to 2026 schedule. Accessed 2026-10-05.
• [4] U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. The Employment Situation, September 2026. September 2026 (released 2026-10-02). Accessed 2026-10-05.
• [5] U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. Current Employment Statistics database, flat files (ce.data.20a, ce.data.20b, ce.data.05b). through September 2026. Accessed 2026-10-05.
• [6] U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. Employment Situation Table B-1: Employees on nonfarm payrolls by industry sector and selected industry detail. September 2026. Accessed 2026-10-05.
• [7] U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. Employment Situation Table B-3: Average hourly and weekly earnings of all employees on private nonfarm payrolls. September 2026. Accessed 2026-10-05.
• [8] U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. Current Population Survey database, flat files (series LNU03032231, LNU04032231, LNU03000000, LNU04000000). 2000 to September 2026. Accessed 2026-10-05.
• [9] U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. Schedule of Releases for the Employment Situation. 2025 to 2026 schedule. Accessed 2026-10-05.
• [10] U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. Labor Force Statistics from the CPS, Table 18b: Employed people by detailed industry and age, 2025 annual averages. 2025 annual average. Accessed 2026-10-05.
• [11] U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. CPS Table 18b: Employed persons by detailed industry and age, 2015 annual averages. 2015 annual average. Accessed 2026-10-05.
• [12] U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. CPS Table 18b: Employed persons by detailed industry and age, 2020 annual averages. 2020 annual average. Accessed 2026-10-05.
• [13] U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. Employment Projections Table 1.10: Occupational separations and openings, projected 2025 to 2035. 2025 to 2035 projections. Accessed 2026-10-05.
• [14] U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. Employment Projections: 2025 to 2035 news release (USDL-26-1422). 2025 to 2035 (released 2026-08-27). Accessed 2026-10-05.
• [15] U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. Employment Projections Table 2.1: Employment by major industry sector, 2025 and projected 2035. 2015, 2025, 2035. Accessed 2026-10-05.
• [16] U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. Occupational Outlook Handbook: Construction and Extraction Occupations. 2025 to 2035 projections; May 2025 wages. Accessed 2026-10-05.
• [17] U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. JOLTS Technical Note. current methodology. Accessed 2026-10-05.
• [18] U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. JOLTS Data Definitions. current definitions. Accessed 2026-10-05.
• [19] U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. Consumer Price Index, August 2026 (USDL-26-1496). August 2026 (released 2026-09-11). Accessed 2026-10-05.
• [20] U.S. Department of Labor, Apprenticeship.gov. Apprenticeship Industries: Construction. 2025. Accessed 2026-10-05.

Tier 2: trade bodies, market research, company data (6)

• [21] Associated Builders and Contractors. ABC: Construction Industry Must Attract 349,000 Workers in 2026 Despite Macroeconomic Headwinds. 2026 and 2027 model estimates (released 2026-01-15). Accessed 2026-10-05.
• [22] Associated General Contractors of America and NCCER. Construction Workforce Shortages Are Leading Cause of Project Delays (2025 Workforce Survey release). Survey fielded July to August 2025. Accessed 2026-10-05.
• [23] Associated General Contractors of America and NCCER. 2025 Workforce Survey Analysis. Survey fielded July to August 2025. Accessed 2026-10-05.
• [24] Associated General Contractors of America and Sage. The 2026 Construction Hiring and Business Outlook. Survey fielded 2025-11-04 to 2025-12-15. Accessed 2026-10-05.
• [25] North America's Building Trades Unions. The U.S. Does Not Have a Skilled Craft Labor Shortage. It Has a Workforce Planning Crisis.. Statement dated 2026-05-28. Accessed 2026-10-05.
• [26] Harvard Joint Center for Housing Studies. Rebuilding the Construction Trades Workforce. 2007 to 2022 (published 2024-06-05). Accessed 2026-10-05.

Tier 3: journalism and expert commentary (1)

• [27] The Blue Collar Recruiter. The Construction Labor Shortage in 2026: What Every Employer Needs to Know. Page updated 2026 (cites June 2026 JOLTS). Accessed 2026-10-05.