Thomas Vitlo, author of “Hesitation inrnthe Construction Industry,” says that, while overall construction spending hasrnincreased since the end of the recession, construction employment has not kept pace.  He based his analysis on the Census Bureau’s “Valuernof Construction Put in Place Survey” and the Bureau of Labor Statistics “JobrnOpenings and Labor Turnover Survey.  Vitlornused a six-month moving average to iron out the strong seasonality of activityrnin the construction industry.  </p

In the resulting chart it is clear that,rnbefore the Great Recession, the two series were fairly well correlated.  Construction hiring fell as spending declinedrnand rose as spending increased.  Then inrnearly 2010 the two diverged.  Spendingrnfell to a low of 16.8 percent in December 2009 and increased to a peak of 9 percentrnyear-over-year in October 2012.  Totalrnconstruction hires, however peaked at 14.6 percent in June 2010 and have beenrndecreasing by 8 percent year-over-year as of October 2013.  “Therefore,” Vitlo says, “as spending hasrngenerally increased over the past few years, construction hires have declined,rnaveraging only a 1 percent increase since June 2010.”</p

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Coinciding with the shift in thernrelationship between hiring and spending is a reversal in constructionrnemployment.  The BLS employment figuresrnshow that in the eight years before the recession construction employmentrnaveraged 7.1 million but since September 2008 the average has been 5.8rnmillion.   Even more intriguing, Vitlornsays, is the share of employment going to construction.  Pre-recession construction employmentrnaveraged 5.1 percent share and it is now 4.1 percent.  After the peak-to-trough decline the sharernhas plateaued for 50 months.</p

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