Employees in U.S. construction industry 1998-2022

The number of production workers in the construction industry in the United States has increased in 2021 and 2022. In 2006, there were 9.56 million construction workers in the U.S., after which construction employment fell sharply. The reason for that decrease was the economic crisis that started in 2008.

Construction labor shortage

As the world rapidly urbanizes, the construction industry struggles to keep up with the need for new infrastructure and buildings. However, many people now avoid construction jobs as they are perceived to be difficult, dirty, or dangerous. The shortage of skilled construction labor has been immense across the U.S. and Canada, in the latter country, the number of vacancies in the construction sector peaked in April 2022, as they represented over eight percent of all construction jobs. However, those figures are still quite high.

Construction labor costs worldwide

The cost of salaries and wages in the European Union have increased at a fast pace, with an increase of over 50 percent between 2015 and 2023. In the United Kingdom, the type of subcontractor workers with the highest salaries were those in electrical and plumbing construction trades. While roofing and steel and timber frame erection were among the trades with the lowest salaries. The overall salary expenditure in the construction industry soared in Argentina during that period. However, those figures can also be influenced by other factors, including inflation. In addition to that, those figures measure the overall spending on labor, which does not only depend on the value of the average salary, but also on how many people were employed at a given point in time.